


Fluid Dynamics

by Dodo



Series: I anthropomorphize everything [19]
Category: Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bonding Marks, Copulation, FrostIron - Freeform, Insecure Tony, M/M, Multi, Omega Bucky Barnes, Omega Steve Rogers, Oral Sex, ThunderIron - Freeform, Tiberius is an Ass, Tony-centric, Whales, sponge molestation, vertical tango
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-03-20 11:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18991957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dodo/pseuds/Dodo
Summary: Tony is a tiny, runty example of his species, his adventure in the great big blue is exciting and perilous as he tries fulfill his quest to grow big, find where he fits in, and maybe…Just maybe, a family.





	1. Laminar Flow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Loran_Arameri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loran_Arameri/gifts), [MountainRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MountainRose/gifts).



> this is a wip, I've got most of it outlined. I just wanted to get it up before mermay ended >.>

“Summation of the alpha, beta, and omega dynamics of Ethral Whales  
By, Dr Banner

Ethral whales have a two puberties the gap between them can last a number of years. The first perberty is of primary sexual traits, and sexually mature. The second puberty is for the secondary sexual characteristics, the double fluke of the alpha, and for all the enhancement of the melon spot.

A sexually mature female can reproduce, an omega male must have the second puberty completed to become pregnant. There is a notable difference in the time of maturation between the secondary characteristics of the alpha and omega. Betas are assumed to be a constant, as they’re maturation seems to be a steady inbetween for the most part.

Size is misleading in Ethral whales, unlike Cherri et. al. where they made the long standing observation that the alphas get much larger citing the amber reticulated double fluked female in the philippines; this particular example has been debunked. The whale “Ina” has been sighted at this location for over fifty years, there are pictures of her without the double fluke.

Recently a tooth of hers was obtained and sampled Ina is a sixty year old Omega, her hormones levels have changed and thus allowed for a second fluke to develop. The omegas of the Ethral whales typically in the males are much larger than their male beta and alpha counterparts. Females are also usually larger than those two as well, they follow a similar habit with the larger whales of the mother fasting during the first part of calf raising in a safer habitat.

The strange and oftentimes delightful patterns on the Ethral whales seem to serve no purpose and are just variants like that a patterned animal, colors seem to have a broad spectrum and some colors are only found in certain waters. Like that of the coat termed ‘barred curtain’ is usually only seen on the Ethral whales in the baltic sea. 

It has been noted that the dolphins tend to pair up in same primary gender groups, they are highly social. Non omega males then to pair off and leave the pod for period of a few years only returning once their secondary features have matured usually to breed and then leave again. Omega males have been observed staying with the pod, whether to rear their own or help others it's uncertain. Ethral whales do communially raise calves, it's been observed one mother providing for a calf not her own with milk.”

\--------------Laminar Flow-------------

Tony had always been a bit small for his age, he attributed it to loosing Maria at a young age. The milk was why he looked so waifish compared to Ty. Ana had taken him under her pectoral fin and cared for him, even though he was nearly of age to eat fish she still managed to get him some milk. From other mothers, it had been a hard thing for Tony being so hungry.

Drinking someone’s milk given willingly was probably what saved him. Some of the other calves mocked him for it though. It was sort of humiliating, but Tony tamped that down, Ana had a lot of sway in the pod, and his mom had been well liked so… well here he was now with his intended partner Ty.

The only other male in his age range that tolerated him, Ana had been a bit miffed about the pair. Though the pod seemed happy with the pair and bid them adieu as they started their first year away from the pod. They’d meet again come breeding season, Tony was already looking forward to that. The warmer waters were far more appealing to his lithe form over the food rich cold waters.

Ty was showing off his maneuvers to the other paired dolphins leaving. Ty was certain he’d be a beta, as both his parents were, and that's how it worked unless a grandparent wasn’t and then a slight chance of not beta. Beta was a recessive trait and it seemed pretty hard to shake over all. Though Ty’s family reaching back to the great purge had always been beta so Ty was probably right.

The purge being the time where the land mites had hunted them, and then they’d hidden deep under. The mites had thrown bombs in the water as they fought and deeper they swam till the light faded. That was how the story went, Maria was fond of it. She had promised him to show him the hidden spots around the mediterranean, she couldn’t now but Tony hoped he’d be able to find a few for himself. 

As for Tony, Ana hadn’t speculated his secondary gender, Maria also hadn’t said anything. Maria had been a beta, but the male she coupled with had been an alpha. Howard had been intelligent but also brash and when his partner Obie had swum back to the pod scarred up and bleeding no one had doubted that Howard might have nipped the wrong fish, more fish than he could chew. The two had been a pair of alphas and the fact that an alpha male pair had swum back to the pod during feasting and calving season, had caused alarmed.

News that the land mite were still hunting them cause dread, but it was only in certain seas so they changed their patterns accordingly. Avoid and reduce contact, which is what you had to do with suce a belligerent creature. It seemed violence was the land mite’s nature. Obie had died the next day, the healers of the pod finding bits of metal embedded deep in his flesh. Maria had said it was terrible and refused to discuss any more details. Tony still had dreams about the bits of metal, land mites would shoot them out at such speeds that they went through the insulating blubber like it wasn’t there.

That really didn’t matter though he had Ty to help him and Ty wasn’t going to let him forget that. Tony swamp up next to his partner who was still showing off elaborate swimming tricks to some of the other males that were making their way out to the ocean blue to travel and grow and learn.  
“Watch this!”  
Ty took off on a sideway orientation, hitting Tony with his fluke and did a sideways loop. The amber one in the pair stopped watching Ty and swam alongside Tony, pectoral fin brushing his own as he inquired if Tony was alright. That made Ty mad that Tony was distracting them from his marvelous tricks. Tony got to hear about that later.

He learned from the deep blue one that went by Falk, that his mother told him the squid come up from the deep on the nights where the moon is full. Falk was ready to eat some squid, Falk had already planned their route based on food. The amber one Happy was happily talking about it.  
“I’m gonna bash some clams with rocks!”  
Happy bobbed his head mimicking a rock smash. Ty made a dismissive noise and the other pair politely inquired what their plans were for.

“I’d like to see the hidden coves in the mediterranean.”  
“Pssh, Tony no one cares. You don’t even know where they are. We’re going to the north to check out the northern pod!”  
Tony clicked Happy was still touching his pectoral, head tilted just so.

“The northerners don’t really mingle with the rest of us you know that right?”  
Falk spoke airily his ability to convey emotions was far more pronounced as he was an early calf of the season, just a few months after his first puberty. So his mental communications with his melon was more fine tuned than anyone in the makeshift pod. 

“I’ll win them over with my moves.”  
Ty announced as he did another flip, showing of his rich brown color. Falk exchanged a glance and a slight head tilt with Happy.  
“Right, well you know the normal route if you are around we should meet up again. Nice seeing you Two and good luck.”

Tony watched as the two swam off to the current that would take them west, Ty was swimming due north as he knew eventually they’d get to the northern pod. They were not following any known courses which gave Tony some anxiety, he’d not had his first puberty so some of his skills weren’t as refined.

There was a list of his faults within the first week. Ty had already categorized them, he was slow, needed to many breaks, an awful hunter, terrible with mingling. On and on, Tony wasn’t a bad hunter it's just a lot of the ways he learned required two whales to be working together. Ty often left mid hunt. So yes they were eating a lot of clams, cause clams didn’t swim away. 

They would jump out of the water along the wakes of big ships, something that the common purpose would do. It wasn’t strictly forbidden but Tony felt off doing it. Mostly because he Ty would antagonize him and when he finally managed to join up in the jumps with the dolphins, Ty would do something, like jump out under him and slam his beak into Tony’s underside. That and he felt that the dolphins were reluctant to get close to him. Mock him that his jumps were lopsided or he was ‘breaking’ formation. Tony didn’t like the big ships he’d heard enough stories about them hitting others, dumping trash in the ocean. He just didn’t like them but he couldn’t loose Ty so he’d tag along.

Ty also would sleep, while Tony was sleeping instead of watching. He also would wake Tony maybe 2 hours into his sleep so he could sleep. Waking Ty up early would end up with a careless fluke smash or melon poke. He’d apologize but throughout the day it would happen over and over. Tony was torn he didn’t like Ty but he stood a better chance of survival with Ty than without.

Or course that was before Ty essentially swam them into the wasteland of the ocean. There was no food, there wasn’t much in the area and the surface was filled with scuzzy plastic debris. Tony was cranky and unhappy the entire time, and eventually hungry as well. When they got out of the dead zone Ty bolted away from Tony, he attempted to follow but failed.

A day later Tony finally caught up with Ty who was in company of two larger males. They were also heading to the northern breeding grounds. They were swimming at a leisurely pace and politely ignored Tony all together. So he trailed in their wake as Ty galavanted up front. Occasionally they chattered at one point the big silver inquired about Tony falling behind.

“We can slow down, and still be early. Your partner keeps falling behind.”  
“Tony’s always like that, he’s trying to steal the show.”  
Ty clipped back annoyed that Tony was stealing the attention, yet again. He’d had hoped that he’d ditched Tony the previous day. The runt had been a barb in his side since the pod assigned him. Ty would have prefered to go it alone without some needy calf at his side need so much sleep and being incompetent with mostly everything.

“Ah, yeah Steve was like that too, used to start fights all the time and I had to rescue him.”  
The silver chortled placing his pectoral fin on Steve’s side the mottled blue made a disagreeable sound.  
“I’m not the one that gets fluke smacked by all the girls.”  
They both chortled at a shared joke. Tony followed behind, while Ty also laughed not wanting to be left out.

“Alright I got first watch, you guys can have mid watch and Buck will have dawn watch. Sound good?”  
The mottled blue spoke to both Ty and Tony, Ty nodded and moved to sleep next to the silver. Tony tried to buddy up to Ty but he pushed him away. There was a silver pectoral around his side as Bucky pulled Tony over to his other side.  
“Here is good, you look like you need a week of sleep, come on.”

Tony dosed as he cuddled close to Buck, he heard them talking but it didn’t make much sense. It was nice to have some warmth at his side.  
“He’s so small, just like you punk. We should keep him.”  
“And his partner, the jerk?”  
“Maybe he’ll find someone at the pod?”  
“Doubt it.”  
“Well I think we should let him sleep the whole night,”  
“Yeah, sounds good, night Buck.”  
-  
A pair of slappy feet, pacing along his back. A foreign sensation for Tony, he wiggled stuck between the two larger whales it was mid morning and they both seemed to be snoozing. He couldn’t see Ty from his spot and the feet were still slapping at him even though he tried shaking them off.

“I know you’all didn’t have a kid, who is this?”  
The feet where talking and Tony rolled a bit trying to see them.  
“I’m Tony, what er who are you?”  
The feet moved with his roll so he could make out a whitish bird with red accents.  
“I’m Sam, a bird, or Tern. I’m here because there is a fish swell and I’d like to work with my flock and these two bozoos.”

Tony blinked looking at the bird he knew that they were friendly but he’d never seen one, much less have one walk all over him.  
“I can help.”  
Sam bobbed his head while he paced along Tony’s length.  
“We’ll need them though. Buck’s got the stun tail down. You any good with the bubble net?”  
Tony was about to nod but thought better of it with Sam standing near on it.  
“Yes I’m good with the bubble nets.”  
“You can work with Steve then.”

Same hopped up onto Steve’s back and stuck his beak in the blow hole and sheriked into it. Tony wasn’t sure if it would work because the hole was more of a nose than an ear. Surprisingly it did work Steve woke with a jerk and Sam fluttered off and back on to Tony. Steve vanished under the surface and then reappeared looking at Sam sheepishly.

“Right so fish?”  
“Heck yes fish, we can talk about you stealing a calf later.”  
The firm side of Bucky against Tony’s back juddered as he laughed. He paped Tony on the side with his pectoral.  
“We didn’t steal him, he followed us.”

Tony wanted to voice that he wasn’t a calf but his belly spoke for him instead so that really didn’t help his case. Sam cackled and took off, They followed him and sure enough there was a fish ball. Tony followed Steve as they weaved a nice bubble net, Steve giving him pointers about how to do it better but overall Tony was doing well. 

Buck had stunned a bunch of fish for the birds that kept the fish away from the surface and stuck in the bubble net. Tony saw a marlin dive into the ball, he waited till Steve gave him the clear to dive in. He wasn’t super good at it, the fish even though they were clumped together were still hard to catch.

He got maybe two out of his four tries, he preferred working the bubble net. As Steve would ‘mistakenly’ drop half a fish he was eating, same with Buck.  
“Tony you should practice more, you’ll get better… or do what Bucky does.”  
Tony watched buck charge the ball and then swing his tail into it and slapping fish with it. Then Buck would gobble up the stunned fish. Tony tried that and got two more fish which was better than the dive and eat plan.

A few bigger fish mostly marlin joined in, a single shark as well as they all worked the fish into a tighter packed ball and took turns diving into it. A massive humpback whale with one eye that was well known by Steve, Sam, and Buck had appeared and pretty much finished the ball off. Nick had been alerted by Sam’s flock of the food. He’d shown off his bubble net technique per Steve’s request and Tony eagerly learned from the whale. Finally Tony had experienced a real hunt, and while he definitely needed to practice he felt pretty good about his performance.

It was a bit later the ball was now just scales drifting down and the massive shadow of Nick grew smaller and smaller. He nosed around a few fish trying to keep them floating and not sinking, Steve was chatting with the birds and Tony was too consumed in this odd task to fail to notice Bucky.  
“Hey what are you doing here?”  
Tony flinched at the sudden noise and dove down to poke one of the fish back to the same level. Feeling really silly about saving fish for Ty who had not appeared yet.

“Um fish for Ty?”  
Bucky snorted pul lifted up one of the sinking fish.  
“He left for the breeding grounds, early morning around the time he was to take watch.”  
“Oh…”  
Tony looked at the fish that he’d been poking and ate it. Feeling a bit out of sorts he’d know Ty had barely tolerated him. Though he’d hoped that they’d work that out, but apparently Tony was still too slow for Ty. Kinda hurt that his partner was looking to ditch him at the first chance. Bucky pressed up against his side.

“Hey we’re also going to the breeding grounds, we’ll take you and then you can give him a piece of your mind. Okay?”  
Tony managed a nod but he really didn’t want to see Ty again if he was honest with himself. Snagging another one of the fish and eating it. He should work hard on putting on weight so he can get his first puberty and then maybe mate?

“You can have the fish.”  
Poking the fish on Bucky’s fin with his snout.  
“Oh thanks!”  
It was gone quickly but Buck still didn’t leave the close quarters with Tony, it sort of reminded him of his mom. When he’d been much smaller the comforting presence of her against his flank. So he allowed Bucky to provide that level of comfort.  
-  
With just a few days of proper rest and feeding Tony had a growth spurt. He still felt incredibly bad that he was slowing Buck and Steve down though. He even apologized and Steve had cut him off claiming that even if they made haste now, they’d still be to early to the place and it didn’t have much in the way of food, so it was best to stock up and show up a day late than be early and starving. Tony still felt a bit bad about it though but he’d learned with his short time with the two that Steve was incredibly stubborn and wouldn’t accept an apology. 

His growth spurt took him into his first puberty, which came with an awkward hard on and some really pretty designs on his body from what he could see. Bucky had teased him about the light yellow petals that stretched along his body. Though when Steve came in to heckle Buck it turned into a sort of free for all. Buck was an iron curtain and Steve was a blue mess, Tony was really confused for the most part as they seemed to be laughing with each other rather than when Ty had made fun of his lack of vibrancy and laughed at him.

He was quick to say he liked bother Buck’s barred curtain marks and Steve’s galaxy pattern. Which earned him some playful ribbing and beak nuzzles, till Steve found his ticklish stop under his chin. Then everything had begun in earnest, nuding and beak poking thrashing and giggling. Now Tony was floating catching his breath and Steve and Bucky tried to finish each other off. Being with these two felt safe, more complete than with Ty. Tony hoped he could maybe join up with these two instead of Ty. Hoping that Ty would be long gone or at least have another partner for the next part of their adventure.

He watched them spin and poke, and then their movements took on a more graceful approach. Then Tony of course realized half way through watching it that they weren’t playing anymore. He could feel his beak get warm and his fins tingle as he watched Steve couple with Bucky in a vertical tango. He’d heard about it back at the home pod, he just didn’t think that far about his new friends. He closed his eyes trying to give them some privacy which didn’t work as Bucky called out to him in a sing song voice.

“Tony come check out Steve! He’s turning purple!”  
Tony opened one eye to look at them, they’d moved closer still coupled. Steve was very much purple at this time, eyes closed tightly with his head tucked under Buck’s.  
“Is he okay?”  
Tony was worried, did it hurt?  
“I’m fine Tony, Bucky just mentioned something that got me uhh flustered.”  
“Hot and bothered, you mean. I told him you were watching us and he got super aroused. He clamped on to me so tight. Give my dick back punk.”  
“It's mine you gave it to me Jerk!”

They spun a bit with a few playful bites, eventually disengaged and joined Tony up at the surface. Steve was mouthing the bonding mark on Bucky’s pectoral flipper and the big silver was cooing at Steve. Tony wanted that, what they had something nice between best friends not this meet’n’fuck that Ty had always been going on about. He was a bit envious, of what they had though he felt that once he finally presented his secondary gender that he could really look for a life mate or maybe just stick with these two for the rest of his life.

Eventually Steve stopped goobering Bucky’s fin and took a place beside Tony as they sandwiched him in. Swimming towards the breeding grounds but also stopping to hunt for crabs. Which Bucky taught Tony how to use a rick to smash the crabs for easier munching. Learning that Steve didn’t like crabs much and getting him a clam. Then dealing with the the positive affirmation of getting Steve a clam, which was easily opened by using Bucky’s rock smash technique.

“So when we show, I think you know Peggy will be there.”  
Steve turned purple again around his melon spot and under his eye, ducking his beak into the open clam shells. Hiding from Buck who was finishing up a crab.  
“She’ll want to see you lil Stevie, and we can show Tony off too! It's been a while since a southern whale has been by.”  
Tony noted that Bucky made no mention of Ty at all, it felt really good actually.

“Stevie here had the biggest of crushes on Peggy when he was a calf!”  
“It's not like you think, my mom passed when I was young and Peggy picked up that role, so yes I was in love but like familiar love. She was very kind and I was very small at that time.”  
Tony looked up from his clams and crabs he’d been eager to smash everything and now was paying for it by sorting the hard bits out of the succulent meat bits.  
“My ma died too while I was still suckling, but Ana the matriarch got me milk but I had to also eat fish, not enough milk.”

Steve looked at Tony strangely over the clams that he’d been feasting on.  
“Well she’ll want to meet you Tony, and see us of course. Maybe she’ll even show us how to eat urchins.”  
Tony blinked Bucky was really good at avoiding awkward chats, he was thankful for it.  
“You can eat urchins?”  
“Yup, we should arrive sometime this afternoon.”

They did arrive in the afternoon only because they were delayed by a huge smack of jellyfish. They opted to go around since no one was willing to test if they were the stinging kind. So as they swam around the light blocking smack Tony admired the deadly little ruffles and they way the translucent bodies fluttered in the currents. He wondered if one could eat them and would they taste like ocean?

Tony felt like Bucky and Steve were showing him off to the pod, he saw Ty once or twice. Though mostly he was being introduced to several of the other pod mates that hadn’t seen Buck or Steve in a while. There was some flirting but nothing too aggressive, some even flirted with Tony, which had him ducking under Steve or Bucky which ever one was closer.

They were part of a small selection of whales that got to venture close to shore with the matriarch and learn how to flip, disarm and eat certain types of urchins. Peggy was very nice, she even doted on Tony when he’d figured out a slightly different way to remove the spines. That involved using a rock to smash, he really enjoyed the rock smashing. The extra urchins he got from Peggy were divvied up, Tony shared with the rest of the mini pod. Which earned him more respect among the whales, and from Peggy.

It was nice, to be in a big pod again, he had a few tentative friends from the mini lesson. Natasha was very nice even if she was hard to approach with her ebony coat that sparkles in the sunlight. It looked bland far away but Tony noticed during the urchin exercise that there was a multitude of many colors woven along her sides and in the sun the black took on a dark red. He thought it was very pretty always been a bit partial to the color of red. He told her so as soon as he noticed it.

She had been cold to him at first, though after he modified the urchin smash and shared the extra meat he’d been given as a reward. She seemed to warm up, though only after he went with Bucky to do a clam run for Steve and Clint did She engage Tony at all. She admitted to getting jelly tail from his complement, and took it upon herself to teach Tony how to properly sneak. Citing that if his partner should be Ty once more Tony ought to know how to keep a low profile to avoid the danger Ty gets into. Tony really liked Natasha she had a different way of looking at things.

Ty was flirting around and really only spent some time lingering in the back. Tony ignored him for the most part as he made new friends and learned other tricks. Like the tail beat in the sand to disoreinte fish and eat them in the shallows. A whale with a gaudy purple skin was showing it off in the sandy bottom. Tony was intrigued certainly the demo looked easy but the fish holder was just a clam shell. He practiced with Bucky trying to get the idea down pat so he could try it out later.

With all the lessons and community time, as well as bonding that was happening, Tony was pretty excited to practice some mating dances pretty much alone till Steve appeared. Tony jerked mid spin and did a belly flop, the sting of his belly didn’t match the sting of his embarrassment. Steve was pretty amused,  
“To bad Thor isn’t here, he thinks belly flops are majestic.”  
Tony later learns that Thor is a big manta that comes by often and does belly flops to entice his mates. Thor also couples with a few whales occasionally, one of the few cross species relationships to exist.

There was also news, rumors that whaling had become more prevalent in certain areas. The edge of the blight, which turned out to be the plastic ocean. That area had a lot of the near death incidents, the whales coming to the consensus that most whales are smart enough not to swim through the expanding plastic sea, and swim around it. The land mites had figured that out and were now hunting them at the edge.

Tony decided to avoid the plastic blight, there were safer ways to go. Ways that had food too, he’d gained even more mass at the northern breeding grounds, which was unexpected. Though Natasha was the one that let him know that the matriarch and her co conspirators had decided to fatten him up because he was still rather small. A sign of love, for sure! Tony was very pink for most of the day after Natasha had let him know. Bucky of course had teased him about the pink hues that darkened his reddish skin, but nothing could dampen the elation that the northern pod considered him family.

It came to end too soon, Tony spent the last day with Bucky and Steve playing and talking. They of course invited him to their partnership. He agreed and they all decided to meet up early next morning to go hunting in the inky sea to get squid. Ty had been seen with a whale known as Rumlow and most of the pod had come to the conclusion that was a new partnership. Tony was very happy to have everything he could ever dream of.


	2. Foul Bottom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets taken by ten rings but manages to make friends and escape.

>   
> “My people have a story about the Ethrals, it is a very sad story. We had fallen out of sync with our land, perhaps we’d become to greedy as well. We lived at a great lake we lived in harmony with the Ethral whales of the great lake they would come with the birds and there would be a lot activity. We lived in harmony with them for a while. Then one year of drought, we used the lake. It was noticeably lower as we used it's water to try and save our crops, which had withered, the fish were scares and then came the Ethrals with the birds.
> 
> They picked at our dried up crops, and the whales ate the remaining fish, we were to starve and that's when a group of fishermen went out on the lake and killed an Ethral. It was small and as weak as our own children, as they hauled it on board the bird arose in a massive cloud. Their screams echoed as another group of men plucked their eggs from their nest, even a few of the birds had been caught for food.
> 
> The boat couldn’t move, the water had become Ethral they nudged at the boat. Fearing capsize the men tried to deter the whales by hitting them with the paddles and sharp sticks. They say the lake turned red that day, the Ethral’s managed to pull the calf back into the water. The lake became still, we struggled through the rest of the year.
> 
> When the rains came the lake rose the color of red faded, but the birds never returned. The Ethrals never returned, and now the lake is full of the bony squall fish that we can’t eat, the sea plants we needed for our medicinal uses are no more ravaged by the squall fish. The farmland is no longer enriched by the bird excrement. Once a rich nation fell into this poverty for failing to share our neighbors.
> 
> -  
> The stories from the northern tribe differs they have worked alongside the Ethrals since they crossed that land bridge. They have rich stories where Ethrals have helped them hunt, stories of guidance, compassion, family. There have been documented cases of the Ethrals escorting one of their own, failing in life to the tribe for a ritual that allows the Ethral to pass painlessly on.
> 
> The most popular story is ‘O’ma’ the story of the male Ethral that lost his calf but found a young girl, in a similar predicament. The story seems outlandish that now, could sea life care for a young land bound human? That fantastical idea is probably what endears us to the story.”
> 
> Excerpt from: “the fluked tale” M.D. Yinsen   
> 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------  
Unfortunately after the breeding season ended no other male dolphin was in such a state of singleness to take Ty up and he once again was stuck with Tony. Rumlow apparently had a partner and even though Ty had been invited had decided that he was more monogamous in the whole partner thing, even though he’d had multiple partners during this breeding season. That and even though Tony had practically spent all his time with the two omegas He’d even been invited to stay with them. Ty must have somehow known and interceded to get his ‘partner’ back, or something.

Tony had missed his chance, Steve and Bucky were gone Ty had won this round he thought morosely. He hadn’t meant to sleep in but someone had been pestering the whole night just about every time he nodded off, Ty would rouse him with a vindictive poke. At least he got to say goodbye to them earlier, still it would have been nice to meet up with them at dawn and head off to the ink waters for squid. 

So he was pretty grouchy that day as they left the dwindling norther pod’s breeding grounds, he could see quite a few other whales giving him looks as Ty continued to harasses him for being slow. Tony was sure by now the looks were more sympathetic to him than Ty, if anything the northern pod had demonstrated that they didn’t care much for the flashy gimmicks that worked so well in the southern pod. 

Or maybe it was that Tony was maturing and able to figure out what the others were thinking based on their body language. The fact that every whale Ty mated with didn’t linger was not a good sign, a quickie and move on. Buck had let him know that most of the northern pod was like that of the southern pod, but the betas tended to pair off in hetero couples more frequently. The southern pod had seemed happy to see Ty off and Tony did recall Ana being miffed that they had selected Ty as his partner. Maybe Ty had been the odd whale out.

Ty at first had been proud of his conquests, though when Tony had shown up sporting new colors and being flanked by two of the larger omegas it seemed Ty’s thunder was stolen. As Tony was brought to the matriarch of the pod Peggy, a beautiful copper whale with a budding second fluke, not as big as Ana but she was younger. Bucky had spilled the urchins earlier that Steve used to have a massive crush on her, even though their ages were vastly different.

Tony had been a bit excited to learn that Steve and Bucky were closer to his age than he’d have thought. Apparently they had spent a year bulking up and not bothered coming to the breeding area the first year. Only a year ish difference than, Tony carefully stored that hope somewhere safe. Peggy was very nice leading them around to other in the pod as a social thing. Ty had tagged along uninvited, but luckily had enough sense not to speak up.

Though now Tony was certainly getting a melonful from Ty, upset that Tony’s pattern was flashier than Ty’s. Tony mused that most designs were flashier than brown, grey, and beige double helixes along his dark brown body, but he kept it to himself. He still liked the subtle design, though it really didn’t match Ty’s personality.

Ty had decided that they were going to spend the rest of the year swimming back to the southern’s pod breeding grounds. For surely by then he’d present his second gender, Tony was a bit dismayed at the idea of swimming back south when they’d just arrived in the northern area. Seemed like a waste, he still longed to go to the inky sea, thinking he could still catch up with the two whales that made him feel complete.

Ty insisted going back the way they came would be best.   
“We shouldn’t do the plastic sea though, remember the northern pod said the land mites where whaling around there.”  
“Psh it's the fastest way back and I didn’t see anyone around us when we went.”  
Tony scoffed quietly to himself it was probably cause they went through the plastic sea, like dumb younglings. 

Ty had initially compromised on going around the plastic sea by saying they could do it half way like the first part and then diverge off the edge and back into the water that had food and the surface wasn’t clogged with plastic. Tony was not really okay with this arrangement knowing Ty would find some way to follow his original plan. Followed under the water at a more sedated rate, pretty much ignoring Ty’s flashy jumps out of the water.

“I don’t see anyone up there you should come jump with me.”  
“I want to keep my energy so I won’t slow you down.”  
Tony managed to say with a straight face, recalling every time he’d try to jump with Ty and the painful bruises and flops that had occured. Surprisingly under the side of the plastic sea Tony saw a smack of jellies. Maybe it was the same group from before though the distance didn’t help.

He could recall Natasha mentioning that she’d seen a lot more jelly fish then the previous year. Tony wondered what that meant, it seemed odd though if large smacks were becoming more of a thing. Tony thought maybe the thing that ate jelly fish if that was a thing wasn’t doing so good? He’d heard stories about the humboldt from the northern pod apparently the land mites were hunting sharks and the humboldt's population skyrocketed.

Seeing a few whales that specialized in hunting humboldts, the scared up beaks with tentacle marks and gashes. They were not the squid of the inky sea, a different species, though the hunters all seemed to be older betas. They had to hunt in a tight pod cause humboldts were so over populated that they probably could overwhelm an experienced hunter. Bucky had been enthralled by the stories, Tony had found them a bit to scary and hung out with Steve for that part. Steve was willing to tell Tony about the inky sea which wasn't all that inky and was only called that because the best hunting came at night when everything was dark, and one couldn't see the ink anyways.

Tony heard it before he saw it, a strange thudding noise or a jugging noise. He sunk a bit lower looking for the source of the sound but not seeing anything he didn’t like it. Edging closer to the plastic nothing there seemed to be moving. Ty was still splashing around like he normally did. Tony surfaced in the plastic with his head tilted to the side like Natasha had shown him, saying that the landmites would look for the water blown from the blow hole. 

He breathed softly as he peaked around some odd looking rubbish, sure enough there was a boat with a few land mites coming towards Ty. Tony wasn’t sure what to do, he obviously was going to warn Ty but then? Swim away but will Ty insist they do something stupid, Tony wasn’t sure if he wanted to risk his life for Ty. He wanted to see Bucky and Steve again, he sunk down under the trash and swam over to Ty.

“I see the whalers they’re heading this way, I think it's time we stick to the plan and swim away from this plastic mess.”  
Ty gave Tony a ‘are you kidding me’ though he did poke his head out of the water and spray water from his blow hole in a glorious jet.  
“Yes let's follow my plan ad swim away from the plastic now.”  
Tony was confused but mollified as they headed away from the plastic though Ty kept surfacing for flips, not as much but he was apparently still practicing.

There was the juddering noise again, Tony sunk a bit deeper in the water sure enough the boat behind them probably from the plastic sea and now there was another boat in front of them. Seemed like a trap and the way they were positioned made Tony think that there was possibly a third ship. There was something dragging along the ground his melon picked it up while he was thinking it registered like a snake.

Curious he lurched forward to inspect it finding that it was part of a net had him shocked. There had been a discussion about nets in both pods, they weren’t good news. Apparently almost every whale that had been netted would either have it's fins wither away or die slowly. Tony jerked away from it in needed to find the opening before the boats closed in. Ty was still doing his flips and shit as Tony peeled off at a 45 degree angle for the place that was least likely to have a boat. 

“Hey Tony! They have food.”  
Tony turned to see Ty at the surface eating something, he saw the shadow of the boat side lurch closer to his idiot partner. Surging forward he slammed into the boat pushing it away from Ty, stunned from the blow he sunk. There was a flash of bubbles and another followed by a searing pain in his chest. Tony jerked back away from the boat gasping for a breath then diving to get away. Ty cried out, whether in fear or pain Tony didn’t know his vision had tunneled. 

The pain in his chest caused drag and it felt like he was pulling against something. Struggling to make his way to the area he was sure was free of net, there was a strong vibration not of the boat. It was massive and rocked his chest. His melon picked up the size but the shape was distorted Tony realized perhaps it was something else caught in the net. He felt something massive move past him, then sharp tug on his chest it made him black out for a moment.

There was a massive displacement of water the jugging noise that had been following tony like a plague was quiet. The tugging was gone and there was a presence next to him. Tony opened his eyes to see net and Nick. The mighty humpback whale was covered in the net looking in a right mood, there was bits of plastic and boat debris floating around them. He made a very authoritative noise that Tony loosely understood as ‘Go’.

Go he did until they came to the conclusion that they were netted together. Tony deferred to Nick and they swam slowly and cautiously to land. Nick knowing that there were some good landmites in the area that could free them from the net, though the pain in Tony’s chest was another matter. It was a day later that Tony realized he’d been harpooned and had another panic attack about it. Wheezing pitifully as Nick held his pectoral fin up so Tony could get some air. They really didn’t have the same harmonics to communicate well. 

Though luckily with the previous hunt they had some things down, and eventually some Terns found them. They made translations easier, they also aided in bringing over the whale watcher land mites who carefully cut the nets away from Nick and his body. Though they put Tony in some sort of sling, The birds told him via Nick that he would probably be taken to a place to be rehabbed and then released. It was really scary in the sling, Tony couldn’t see anything but he could feel and hear it was all very disorienting. The pain in his chest throbbed and the bright blue mesh reminded him of the net pressing in at his sides.  
-  
Tony woke up confused, his melon was really muzzy and didn’t seem to work quite right. There was no way he was stuck in a cave? He could breath. He dosed in the sun his chest hurt a bit but not as bad, the water tasted funny. He blinked as he looked around at the bright uninspired walls, he was in a ugly cave without a top. He poked his head out and glanced around, a sign with an ugly looking whale on it and words. That he couldn’t read, because written language isn’t for whales.

Didn’t matter eventually Tony would come to learn that the sign read ‘Ten Rings’ and they were the best at sealife care and rehabbing, and that he was very much stuck in a tiny ass tank that was barely wider than he was long. 

There wasn’t much to do but eat the dead fish and loiter around at the bottom of the tank, as Tony tried to avoid the harsh sunlight. He had observed one land mide with a rich dark skin moving around at dusk. This one would make whistling sounds, which had endear Tony to him since it the closest thing to pod chatter Tony had since he was moved here. Initially Tony had ducked under the water when the light beam moved towards him, scared of a repeat harpooning. When nothing happened repeatitly he stopped ducking and moved closer.

Upon inspection the night land mite had something that jingled and Tony found it fascinating and he wanted it, the shiney jingles that hung of the land mite at mid level. So he plotted to steal the shiney jingles that earned him his first cross species friend. Lulling the land mite in his docility and then snagging the shinies in his beak and pulling them off, ripping the odd skins and taking the new toy to the bottom of the tank to play with. The scraps of fabric had been interesting, but Tony returned them to the gobsmacked land mite. He’d gotten what he wanted. Laying on his side at the bottom of the tank playing with the cool jingly shines.

That land mite was called Rhodey and he never forgot that, and refused to get close to Tony’s tank when Tony was at the edge. Though that was mostly because Tony was very eager to splash Rhodey with water, since Rhodey would get loud and flap his arms. Oh it was great fun to get Rhodey wet. A small bit of enjoyment for his dreadfully dull days.

Rhodey eventually brought him a set of brightly colored keys, in exchange for the original ones Tony had been keeping safe. It was a good trade where Tony left the original keys on the cement rim and swam off to the far side watching Rhodey swap them for the bright colored ones. They didn’t make the same jingle but there was a red key and Tony was very partial to it and thus he wanted them. 

The new keys were easier to hold in his beak and were softer in his mouth. He held them in his mouth while swimming nearly vertical as he chirped and followed Rhodey around as best he could. He could be a night key whistler too. Calling out for Rhodey which just sounded like ‘oodeeeeeey’ Which tony usually just shortened it to ‘eeeeeyyyy’ because he could.

Rhodey called him Tones which was close enough to his own name that he didn’t mind it to much. He liked to mimic Rhodey talking because he thought if he practiced enough landmite mannerisms he could get them to send him back to the ocean. Or maybe learn their language but he couldn’t make a lot of their sounds and they couldn’t hear half his.   
-  
Unbeknown to Tony, was Rhodey was carefully going over his encounters with him to another land mite.   
“This whale is mocking me, like one of the mimes before the show.”  
Pepper looked up from her notepad.  
“Do you think he’s sick, we could get Bruce to check him out.”  
Rhodey shook his head thinking about all the times Tones had tricked him or copied him.  
“No, I’m sure he’s _fucking with me on purpose_. That test you have, with the mirrors? You need to do that with him, I think he’s _self aware_.”

Pepper closed her book, looking thoughtfully at Rhodey. Her friend wasn’t really known for his love of animals, the only pet Rhodey had was a rock that Pepper had given him years ago. He certainly didn’t have a lifestyle that could support an animal anyways.  
“Alright, I’ll do that test. Is there anything else you’ve noticed?”

Rhodey nodded and launched into the story about Tones stealing his keys, and the exchange for the real keys with plastic keys. Followed by Tones mimicking his strole with the keys in his mouth copying his whistle.  
“I thought maybe it was a fluke so I whistled another song, the turkey in the straw. Pep with in two days he was whistling that in his mocking routine.”  
“Well they have been documented to be musically inclined, I’d like to see that myself.”  
“Not only that he does that teenager thing when I talk, he flaps his beak. Then to make things worse he tricks me into getting close to the tank so he can splash me.”  
Pepper giggled.  
“Oh Rhodey sounds like you made a friend.”  
-  
It was through Rhodey that he met another land mite, the red headed Pepper, this one was different but Tony wasn’t exactly sure why at first. Didn’t matter with Pepper came new things, Tony didn’t look a gift land mite in the mouth, actually he did. He observed the land mite pressing her lips to Rhodey’s cheek. At the next opportunity he pressed his beak against Pepper’s cheek. Calling out ‘peeeep’ as he did his best to mimic her name.

She touched him with her hands, Tony liked that he would do as many hugs. The walls scraping his belly didn’t matter if Peep touched him, he missed that.  
“Ok Rhodey, lower the mirror in. I’ve placed the sticker.”  
Tony whined when Peep removed her hands and walked over to Rhodey. He followed peeping for more, more touches he wanted them. Oh how he missed bucky’s protective body bumping against him in the ocean at night. The feeling of safe, he wanted that back.

Rhodey had put something in his tank, he dipped below the water to inspect it. Another whale? He nosed the side of the flat surface, suspicious he’d been over the tank there was no hidden space. Sonar told him it was flat. No it moved like him, he looked a bit more it was a very nice looking whale. He raised his tail, and moved his head. It was him, he chirped at it looking at his marks that had deepened in color. 

He was very pretty, red his favorite color with long petals of gold on his flanks. His melon mark was also coming in which was exciting since that meant he was close to his second puberty! He did a happy wiggle in front of the mirror, Wait! 

There was a white spot on his side. Where did that come from, he tried poking it with his beak but it was just out of reach. He surfaced and asked for rhodey to pull it off, Rhodey shrugged at him. So he went to Pepper and tried to gesticulate at the spot, Pepper was too busy with that paper thing. So he decided he would scrape it off on the side of the tank.

“Pepper, Pep! He’s trying to get it off. He’d bleeding.”  
Pepper dropped her book, and rushed to the tank wall. She’d been documenting Tones’ reactions to the mirror and spot. It was apparent that Tones was self aware, She paused at the edge seeing the thin red vapor as Tones rubbed the side with the spot against the wall. She splashed her hand against the water calling for him. Worried about Tones hurting himself over the sticker.

Tony stopped in his scrapping when he heard splashes and he came over to investigate. Peep was there she looked sad, he lifted up was he going to get another embrace? Peep picked the white spot off his side, and ran her hands along his scrapes. He squeaked it stung a bit, the hands were placed around his melon and patted his head gently. Tony tried to get over the wall separating them but only ended up scraping his belly.  
“Oh Tones that tank is doing you no favors.”

Peep let go and Tony whined for her to come back, please? She was picking up her stuff and collecting the mirror. Soon only Rhodey was left, Tony floated dully at the top of the tank looking dejected. Rhodey was whistling but Tony wasn’t in the mood. Till something splashed in his pool, it was bright and round.  
“I got you a ball Tones, figured you would need something other than those keys. We can play catch tomorrow.”

Tony lifted his head and did an exaggerated nod, he would keep Rhodey’s sphere safe. He pushed it around with his beak, it had an odd bumpy texture. He popped it out of the water, made a game of it for a bit. As the sky was black now, the sun had long setted, Rhodey was off doing his ‘duty’. Tony tried getting on top of the ball, have it under his body and then a few hours of playing with it he managed to pop it. 

The orange husk of the ball made a new toy that was just as fun because he could really give it a nice chomp. The former ball would lay nicely at the bottom of the tank with his keys. He liked balancing the concave part on his beak as he swam upright, trying to get it on his melon like a hat he’d seen Rhodey wear. It provided enough distraction for the night that he didn’t miss Pepper as much.  
\--  
Tones had tried escaping a total of two times before Pepper had been bought into the equation. Now with Pepper Tones seemed to be stimulated more, though he was even more listless when she left. She had shown the whale a map of the park pointing out that he was surrounded in concrete and even if he did escape the pool he’d have miles to go before the ocean. That was met with vicious splashing, it was clear to Rhodey that Tones’ desired freedom. 

The tank wasn’t idea for a whale of his size and there wasn’t much to do in it. Sure he had keys, a deflated basketball, and rubber ball but those things hardly amounted to the stimuli Tones would receive in the wild. After the mirror test, Dr. Banner had stopped by to inspect the scrapes and offered a alternate way for the whale to get close. A towel placed over the lip could protect the cetaceans’ skin from the course cement grain.

The towel was now a toy as well though Tones seemed to use it as a sunscreen wrapped over the top of his body when he was floating on the surface. Touch starved had also been tossed around, the hugs that Tones had with Pepper could last hours if Pepper permitted it. Pepper who seemed to be Tones’ favorite, which was just as fine cause Rhodey wasn’t getting splashed as much.

They were training him to roll belly up and lay still for the medical procedures or at least for checking the healed wound and doing blood draws. They used a different fish treat for this as the standard fish as a bribe didn’t work. Rhodey was pretty sure it was because Tones was tired of the same old mackerel that they fed him though he wasn’t able to get Tones anything else. 

Dr Yinsen, came to the tank just to observe on Pepper’s behalf, Rhodey saw him on the tail end of the day. Pepper looked excited, happy and was chatting up with Tones about nothing stroking the melon and the flank. Tones was typically trying to climb the pool’s lip to get closer to Pepper. Rhodey learned that day Tones had his third escape attempt.

Dr Yinsen had a book on the the Ethral whales, old stories that were passed on by many different cultures. He’d taken just a day to decide that Tones was well enough to be released back into the ocean.  
“They are very social creatures, this isolation is very cruel. The interactions of both verbal and touch, you can see that he’s trying to touch more of Pepper everytime they hug and he is unwilling to let go of the embrace. We are starving him, in his social aspects. Keeping him here will be a disservice to him.”

“We must work on getting him freed regardless of what the bureaucracy says. The dolphins we have do not receive enough enrichment as it is, there is no way we can provide for this Whale. He is fit and healthy, I’m sure Dr. Banner will collaborate with me one this.”  
Rhodey was left with a paperback copy of his book signed, and very glad that he’d said something to Pepper about Tones.

So they practiced getting Tones into the transfer hammock which took some doing since Tones didn’t like them. The general consensus was he associated them with his rescue from the ocean, and Rhodey felt that Tones was probably afraid of waking up in another strange place after getting in one. If it had happened to Rhodey, he’d be damn suspicious of the hammocks too.

In the end it took Pepper offering some squid to get Tones to swim into the hammock. The squid was inhaled and Tones chirped for more, nosing Pepper’s hands as he rested in the hammock. Squid was rather expensive so shrimp was used once Tones was in the hammock. Took a few days but they could now lift him up in the hammock without Tones thrashing about.

When Dr. Banner came out to do another check up on Tones, he noted that the whale had grown bigger since the last time. The colors were more pronounced, and there was a second dorsal fin budding from the back. He had Pepper roll Tones over with a bit of squid, checking on the scared up chest and the minor scrapes that had occured in the tank. Pepper was instructed to check the sex incase they’d made a mistake and Tones was actually a girl.

Tones squeaked in surprise when Pepper touched him, the whale wiggled a bit but held still. Tones would do nearly anything for squid it turned out. Tones was most definitely a dude, and Dr. Banner gave him a clean bill of health taking the blood samples back to his lab. Outside of Ten Rings the public was demanding that they release the Ethral Whale. A plan leaked that the park had planned to put Tones on show, though another grainy video had leaked of Tones’ second escape where he was flopping on the cement trying to get to the ocean.

It hadn’t been Rhodey’s shift but he suspected it had been one of his coworkers, even shitty footage like that would sell nicely. Ten Rings really didn’t pay it's employees that well. It also helped pressure the higher ups that may be releasing the whale was the best way to get good publicity. It helped they got a date for the release, nearly 6 months after his capture and surgery Tones was going to be a free whale again.

Rhodey was going to miss Tones, no other critter had sassed him so much. That spunk was going to be missed, he confided to Pepper this.  
“I know but, I think we can probably put a tracker on him for a bit. The temporary ones so we can learn more about them. But I’ll miss Tones most definitely.”  
\--  
Tony was pretty pleased he was getting squid occasionally along with some shrimp, Peep was giving him all the tasty things, and she was touching him in spots that felt good. He liked it a lot, he was pretty sure Odeeeey and Peep had invited him into their pod. He was so happy to have a makeshift family that he aimed to please them.

So when he go another stiffy he rolled on his back and presented it to Peep. Flapping his pectoral fins while calling for ‘peep,peeep’ excited to show off his dick. Maybe she would touch it again? Tony would like that very much, Odeeeey made a chortling noise off to the side as Tony showed himself off.  
“Pepper looks like Tones’ is looking for an encore.”

Pepper’s face was bright red, looking at the whale’s dick. It was pronged like an alpha’s and covered with light ribbing on the top and bottom, the sides were sleek. Pepper carefully rubbed Tones’ belly.  
“That's very nice Tones.”

However that didn’t stop Tony from presenting every hard on he got, even if he just got belly rubs for it. It was worth it in Tony’s mind he got to be touched it was nice. He would have liked it better if he’d gotten squid for popping a stiffy but it seemed the universe didn’t favor him that much. 

He tried once more to escape, Peep hadn’t shown up for two days and Odey did stop by but Tony made up his mind that if he could get out he could find Peep and take her to the ocean with him. He didn’t do so good, melon first into the ground with his tail in the air. Wiggling hurt on the rough edge of the tank so he held still till some workers found him and pushed him back into the tank.

After that Tony always had someone watching him, it wasn’t usually someone he was familiar with though. They would watch and had a basket of toys they could toss into the pool for Tony to play with. It was okay but Tony really missed his pod mates. When Odey finally showed his face again tony splashed him, and every time he tried to talk, more water.  
“Tones! Man we’re getting the truck to set you free!”

“Odeeeeey,”  
Tony whined splashing his tail in the water, and flapping his beak.  
“I get it Tones, yeah I did sort of leave you there.”  
Rhodey tossed a ball into the pool, and Tony was gutted he wanted to sulk over Odeeey leaving him, but the ball surely meant catch, and Tony loved it. He caved and tossed it back, chirping happily when Rhodey tossed it back.  
-  
Rhodey affectionately splashed water on Tones as they drove towards the ocean. The truck transport had a foot and a half of water sloshing around the base with Tones hanging in the hammock.  
“This is revenge.”  
Tones still managed to spray him with his blowhole much to Pepper’s amusement. She was a fixing a gps tracker to Tone’s fin so they could learn a bit from Tones, but to also document that he was indeed ready to rejoin the ocean.

Rhodey patted tones on his melon between the buckets of water.  
“Gosh man I am going to miss you Tones.”  
Rubbing at his eyes as he carefully poured water on Tones, Pepper was also tearing up. She hugged Tones and the whale tried to hug back. Squeaking ‘peep, peep’ lifting his fluke as he tried to turn his head.

The truck was on the ramp and the crane had Tones out, he could hear the ocean and his demeanor had changed. From confused sedated to excited, his chirping and squeaking had increased, once the hammock was in the surf of the low tide Pepper and Rhodey released one of the booms, letting Tones out who at first darted for the open ocean.

Then he made a sharp curve back to Rhodey and Pepper. He nudged his beak into Peep’s cheek again, and tried to give Rhodey a kiss but instead he got a hug. He chirped at them for a bit letting them say their goodbye and then when the tides started to change they left. Wishing Tones all the luck in the world, with reuniting with his pod.  
-  
Tony was free again, the ocean tasted so much better than the tank. He darted off but then turned around confused as to why Odeey and Peep weren’t following him. Oh they were land mites, they belonged on land, how he’d forgotten that was beyond him. They had the wetness leaking from their eyes and while they smiled they were sad. He kissed Peep, and got a hug from Odey.

Then he lingered with them as they spoke to him and patted his skin. Then when the water rose with the high tide the pressed their lips to his melon and left back to the truck. Tony watched the truck roll away beyond his sight before he turned to the ocean. Swimming along the soft sandy bottom looking for some clams, he’d missed those.

He was free again, back in his home the ocean. He was also alone again, he sagged frustrated. The water seemed pretty warm, he found a current of water and followed it, he would make for his birth place the southern pod’s breeding waters. Another adventure awaited, he’d survived worse he could do this!


	3. Turbidity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finds the inky sea gorging himself on squid and spending days lazing about, before continuing on his journey to find the whale known as Hulk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm so I'm in school and it's really killing my desire to write, as in I'm writing boring things for school and its hampering the fanfiction side. :I  
> but I've got a good portion done and everything is outlined.

>   
> “Eco tourism is at a new high, with the world setting aside areas of ocean as a ‘park’ and tourists coming to these parks to see sea life, has caused a boom in tourism for land masses nearby. The ‘ocean park’ near the galapagos has recently had a boom in the shark population. Combined with new ways to entice sharks to come by that do not require chumming. Allows for more interaction that end better for sharks and people. 
> 
> Places that normally don’t experience the extra stimulus of tourism during the year are now receiving the benefits from tourists coming to see sea life in its natural habitat. Whale shark watch in Mexico has benefited greatly from the north american continent working together and making several smaller safe ocean parks for these large fish. Seeing the speckled body of a whale shark lazily swimp past you in a glass bottom boat is an amazing spectacle. On a good day there can be multiple whale sharks feeding on the plankton rich water in this area.
> 
> The ocean around antarctica has been declared a park as no one country has claim over that land mass, the waters shall be protected so the life under the ice and cold sea will be protected. There is less ecotourism associated with antarctica and it is best until we figure out a way to allow people to see the pristine environment without negatively impacting it.
> 
> Once one gains the proper documents and certifications to take a vessel out to these parks and get a tour by the ‘rangers’ that at first had no pay, but now are receiving a wage. Mostly due to the increasing popularity of these parks, and the demand to have them protect the waters from poachers. These parks have created jobs, the preservation of the ocean is beneficial for us and the planet.  
> -excerpt Daily Bugle”

=======  
Tony had found a warm current, his gut told him to just followed it till he got hungry and made a break towards the land again. There was always shelves of stuff like reefs or vents along the landmass' edges that could provide a snack or meal for him. The sloping continental shelf of this landmass didn’t have much in the way of reefs, the water might have been too warm to support them.

There was plenty of sand though, and with a few exploratory clicks. A school of fish popped up in his melon, he could see them off to his left side. He moved towards them even if they were much closer to the land, he was hungry and it was the perfect opportunity to practice that technique Clint had shown him. Tight circles in the sand to confuse the fish and make them easier to eat.

Well the fin in the sand to confuse the fish did work, it was just Tony had yet to catch the confused fish. Clicking annoyed at himself for missing a fish yet again, he was so rusty at hunting. At ten rings they put the fish directly in his mouth, no hunting required. Maybe if he tried closer to the shore, give the fish less room to escape.

After two more tries he snapped his jaws over a fish. Sweet success! He repeated the maneuver using the churned up sand to disorient the fish in shallow water as he plowed into snag it. So invested in this that he failed to notice a pod of smaller porpoises watching him, avidly. 

They were mimicking his technique, chasing the fish into far shallower water as Tony was easily twice their size. Improvising to have one do the silt kick up and another snag the fish so the whole pod was invested in the activity. The odd dolphin out, managed to pair up with Tony surprisingly they worked pretty well together. 

It took awhile to Tony to use his advanced melon and translate the common dolphin’s chirps. They let him travel with them for a short while too, he learned some interesting stories. The one eye whale Nick had apparently started some sort of avenging initiative for those hunted down by the land mites. That and an association of evil squids was on the rise in the pacific attacking pods indiscriminately at night. 

Not a lot of the news was very good, though there was some chatter about some land mites making safe spots. Though they weren’t anywhere close and in a lot of these spots there wasn’t much in the way of food, or rich enough to keep a pod satisfied all year round. Peter the dolphin that had paired with him for the shallows hunting, was very inquisitive. He was also quite small, Tony looked around for the calf’s mom but realized that most of the pod was younglings.

Just two older males in the pod they introduced themselves as Luke and Danny, they were spotted with scars, but the way they swam around each other. It reminded him of Buck and Steve. So Tony told them about the increase whaling and the dangers of the plastic sea. It was highly suspicious that the pod was a bunch of calves with two older males as the only adults. Tony’s suspicion was proved right when one male confirmed that they knew about the whaling and it wasn’t just big ones.

“We’d been edging around that mass of plastic when they netted us from behind. The mother’s that were not entangled were harpooned. My Danny and I were scouting ahead with these guys. Luckily we escaped. Though that wasn’t the last instance. It was like they were hunting our pod, chasing after us.”

“Are they chasing you now?”  
The most important question to Tony who didn’t desire to have close contact ever again with whalers.

The Danny shook his head.  
“No, Nick smashed them up we’re indebted to him. He wants us to travel to the north and convince a bow head to join the initiative he’s started. I’m not sure we can, we’ve got to teach these calves how to hunt, and the ways back and forth. I can’t leave Luke to mind the pod alone, it's more than a two dolphin job.”

“A bowhead? Why would he send you?”  
Tony was very curious as the bowheads typically stayed in the icy north. He eyed some of the smaller youngsters, the cold would hamper a lot of them. It would be unwise to take any of them into the frigid waters.

“We’re in debt to him and can’t say no? Though I don’t think he’ll be happy with our time frame.”  
Danny looked back at the pod, clicking at a younger female to stop nosing him in the back.  
“Gwen stop, we’ll play soon.”

Tony watched Luke as both Peter and another fatter calf to join the loose congregation of the pod. Two adults and about seven calves, it looked to be a full time job if not more. He nodded thinking that he could help since he was going to head north first. Finally see the inky sea do his exploring.

“I can do it, I’ll go see if I can find this bow head and talk to him about Nick’s plan.”

They both looked relieved.  
“Thank you,”  
With that the pod kept Tony company for a few more days as they traveled in the gulf stream but as the water cooled the pod split. Wishing him a safe journey, and a speedy return to his pod. 

Tony found himself charmed by Pete, Gwen, and Ned the young dolphins spent a lot of time with him. Hiding under his body like a calf would, asking a lot of questions. He could tell they could probably get into heaps of trouble, if given the chance. He was going to miss them as they chirped at him even out of sight, eventually he could no longer hear them and he moved back to his course.

Which took him due north, with a goal that drove him he found himself in chillier waters under a seaweed island. Curious about the natural floating grass mat, he found a couple dozen fish lurking within it. He chilled under it watching some of the fish, smaller than his food dart in and out of the green leaved mat. He was approached by a brightly colored wrasse.

Christine, offered to clean his skin. Which Tony accepted and then she gushed about how pretty he was, while plucking off bits of parasites that had made their home on his skin. She cleaned him pretty well and then she started to gossip, Tony tilted his head. It was a calm day and the gossip sort of washed over him till she started talking about a radical sect of squid.

“Wait, what did you call the squid?”  
He asked curiously,

“Hydra? They think they are supreme, there was one around he recruiting a while ago. They plan to be the apex predator of the ocean, this one was medium sized and while recruiting I saw him eat a few fry. Had to downplay my skills, pass me on. I’m just a cleaner fish, and squid don’t need my help with that.”  
Christine snickered and then tugged at some barnacle that had managed to attach itself to Tony’s flipper.

“Was it scary?”  
“Oh course! It was terrifying, suddenly there is this huge ass squid with more arms than needed up in my space trying to threaten me! while it was also sneaking in a few fish for lunch! Joining would be certain death!”

Tony nodded the recruiting squid sounded pretty fearsome. This Christine seemed to know a lot of things he decided it was worth asking about his new task.  
“I’m heading north to the inky sea, and then to look for a bowhead. Do you have any tips?”

Christine gave him a calculating look.  
“You are looking for the whale they call the Hulk? He’s destroyed many ships, he’s considered the boogie whale…”  
The wrassie pulled away from Tony and swam around surveying him.  
“Stay close to the coast, and when the ice starts you should be able to find him, when the sun is at its zenith. That's what the seals say anyways, it's much to cold up there for me. Now do you have any gossip?”

She brought her pectoral fins under her chin as she looked excited at the idea of more gossip. Tony shook his head no, watching the wrassie deflate. Feeling bad, that she’d helped him with gossip, he mentioned the whaling incursion at the plastic sea. 

His encounter and fight against the land mites, being netted to a humpback. Their quest for freedom the strange sling they took him ashore in. the solidarity of living in a tank miles from the ocean. Christine ate it up asking a few questions here and there as Tony continued his story. He briefly mentioned the pod of younglings and two males. Nothing super personal was mentioned just a summary, and ended it when he spoke of arriving at a seaweed mat.

“And? What happened to Ty?”  
Tony blinked slowly.  
“I don’t know...I think he might be dead?”  
Tony bowed his head, sure Ty had been rude, and mean, but even he didn’t deserve to be killed. The boats hadn’t chased Nick and him so he assumed the remainders had killed Ty and had been busy with that.

“Hmm, thank you for this I can definitely use the plastic sea warning. So many larger animals pass through here, see you around,”  
Christine moved off to a hawksbill that had just arrived to the mat, Tony decided to stay the night as sleeping with others was preferable, he didn’t like sleeping alone.

When Dawn broke and the soft morning light filtered through the sea weed mat, Tony woke stretching around the few fish that had come to close while he was sleeping. They darted away dipping into the volumus twisting green of the mat, Tony ignored them. Getting the kinks out of his back and with a breath of fresh air, he was off.

Heading due north to the inky sea, hungry for the squid. Keeping his mind busy with ideas on how to hunt the squid, trying not to think about Ty, whom he’d forgotten about. He felt bad for forgetting but they hadn’t been close, and Ty was always abandoning him anyways. He was thinking about Ty the squid hunting ploy hadn’t worked. 

He slowed his speed as he thought about Ty long and hard. Ty had been very selfish about nearly everything in their travels together, the only time Tony enjoyed himself was when Ty hadn’t been around. It was unfortunate that Ty died, Tony never wanted that to happen, but on the other flipper it was a relief not deal with him anymore. 

Tony slowed his swimming till he glided to a stop. He closed his eyes. Ty was gone he’d never have to deal with that whale again. He lifted his head up to the surface for a deep sigh, a weight he didn’t know he was carrying lifted. Everything in front of him looked daunting but he could do it, he’s made it this far.

Deciding after finding the Hulk he’d start looking for Bucky and Steve, maybe a quick peek at the mediterranean sea and see his mom’s old home, find some of the hidden coves and pools. Check out the food there then mosy around till it was time to join the southern pod for breeding. Maybe if he traveled enough he could find them or at least spread his story and his search to others? Sounded like a stretch, but it couldn’t hurt.

He felt like he had all the time in the world to explore, the inky sea wasn’t exactly on the same path to Hulk, it wasn’t to far though and that made sense. The mediterranean really didn’t make much sense as most Ethrals had pretty much left that place. Land mites had historically claimed that sea for themselves.   
-  
The inky sea was a nice place during the day it was close to a rock ledge of land that didn’t have many land mites on it, there were quite a few birds though. None of them looked like Sam’s kind though, wrong wing shape, too small. His first night hunting squid had been quite the learning experience. He sucked at it, there was no Peep placing the squid directly in his beak.

He missed Peep patting the inside of his mouth, that had taken some time to adapt too. He thought it odd at first, couldn’t think of any time where any other creature had displayed affection to his mouth. Though it was usually right before something taste was deposited so he put up with it, and it had become enjoyable. If Peep was here certainly she’d help him catch the squid, probably with a net.

The squid were tiny, fast, and flashy the way the brighten up at night in the dark sea made it harder to eat. At first, Tony eventually closed his eyes to hunt using only his sonar, which got him two squid the second night, he was improving. He felt that if he’d had a partner it would have probably been a bit easier.

Spending his days in a little cove in the side of the cliff sleeping, resting his body on the sandbar in the shade of the cliffs during low tide. It was nice, there was also plenty of clams and urchins for him to eat. At one point a bird had fallen in the water and tony didn’t even think it was now in his tummy. He felt a bit queasy about it. Even though he observed some of the larger fish in the area do the same thing.

That and squid tasted much better than bird, not as rough or feathery. Tony swore he had a feather bit stuck between his teeth for a few days after he could feel it. Luckily no other bird landed close to him in the cove after that, he resumed his squid hunting at night.

As he got better eating the squid, he found that he could hunt with his eyes open. Though he relied entirely on his melon to really see, scooping up squid left and right getting his fill. Then of course after being full of delicious squid Tony’s body pops a stiffy and he’s left confused and aroused by it. Some how he’d associated hard ons with squid. If only he could get a belly rub for this.

Tony was upset he couldn’t nose his own dick, felt like he’d been evolutionary cheated out of that. If he had a partner he was sure they could help, though he thought of Ty again. Ty would not help, probably just make fun of Tony’s dick. Call it names and Tony really couldn’t check his out that well, his neck the remains of it didn’t bend that great. Peep liked it so he assumed it was good.

After the third gorging of squid the erect dick became more of an issue. There was a desire to rub it, though there wasn’t much. He returned to the cove, thinking of the sponge he’d seen earlier in the day. Maybe that would feel nice, it took him some time on how to approach it. He did nose it a bit to make sure no shrimp or pinchy things were going to bother him.

He lay on top of the sponge and pushed with his fin, it wasn’t very good. Nothing like when Peep touched him, the sponge had too much give, also it was the same temperature as the ocean and did nothing he would have been better grinding the sand. He readjusted a bit and tried again. It was slightly better but not by much.

Tony paused his sponge humping and looked out towards the sea, he’d hear something. A loud smacking on the surface of the water, curious he poked his head out to see a single manta ray flopping. Steve had told him that he knew a ray that liked to belly flop. He approached carefully to the area where the belly flop display was happening.

There was a dark green moody looking manta in the water, the cephalic lobes curled tightly and ignoring the displays of the other. When it noticed Tony, it paused mid flap. The cephalic lobes loosened and one uncurled completely.  
“Brother! Are you ready to join me in the magnificent flops?”  
The much larger deep blue manta paused in jumping as it swam clower to the green one. There was an odd swirling motif on the blue manta, looked like a hammer? One of the land mite tools.

“Nay, though I found something better, a lonesome horny Ethral whale.”  
Oh his dick was still out, Tony had forgotten. The blue manta turned and the lobes gestured grandly.  
“Indeed, Let’s make haste!”

“Um, hi? I’m Tony.”  
“I am Thor and this is my brother Loki.”  
Loki was circling around Tony just close enough he could feel the water displacement.   
“Steve told me about a manta named Thor, who likes to belly flop.”  
Thor raised both his lobes and his fins, he looked very exuberant but also kind of funny to see such an animated manta. He was pretty sure Loki was teasing him with gliding so close to his dick but not touching it. He wasn’t sure how to feel about it, surely anything would be better than the sad looking sponge he tried to fuck earlier.  
“Ah, anyone who is friends with star barer Steve is friends with me.”

Thor seemed to float there watching all movement ceased and for a hot minute Tony thought he’d died. Thor lifted a wing fin and patted Tony’s melon with it.  
“Shall we have some fun?”  
Thor was very sedated when he asked, Tony blinked but then realized a bit slowly that Thor was expected to be rejected? Tony wasn’t sure how the sex would work with mantas but this was his third squid stiffy and he just wanted it to stop.   
“Yes, I’d like that a lot.”

Thor flapped his wings and his normal jublent behavior returned.  
“Excellent!”  
Loki brushed one of his wings directly on Tony’s dick, it was a surprise and it glided by smoothly. Tony spasmed a bit with his tail.  
“How does this work?”  
Tony inquired as Loki made another pass. Thor fell into a counterclockwise circling from his brother.

“First my friend we take care of you, then air, and you use your beak on us. Good?”  
“Sur...oh!”  
Thor’s broad wing swept by placing a lot more friction on Tony’s cock. He wiggled his body some to get into a better position for the manta’s who had a superb turning radius. Taking on a more vertical orientation allowed Loki to show of his more nimble body. There were flecks of gold in the green mantle of his body, Tony admired it as they sparkled in the early dawn, like the stars of night.

They glided around Tony brushing their fins on him in cool smooth caresses. Sometimes on his dick which felt really good, but most of the time Loki in particular would just let his fins caresses Tony’s body. Loki was probably teasing him based on the satisfied way he was grinning. Thor was definitely dick oriented most of his passes were to press his fin on tony’s dick.

Which was nice compared to Loki's feather touches. Their wings where soft, though probably due to the mucus coat that aided to the gliding along his body. It felt really nice to be touched this way, it had been so long. Peep had done it once, he really missed that, Peep’s hand could have been really good to it was so nimble, he wasn’t sure why she never touched him after the first time.

He quivered under the rays’ gentle ministrations, attempting to buck into Loki’s find with little success. Rutting into Thor’s was a bit easier.  
“Oh-ho he is eager! Shall we satisfy our whale friend, dear brother?”

Loki circled back in a tight loop pressing his side along Tony as he slowed down. Gliding against the pronged dick the green manta stilled, the cephalad lobes uncurled. In an awkward embrace the lobes patted down his dick. Loki placed his mouth over the dick, and sucked.

It was incredible, Tony quaked his tail muscles spasming as Loki sucked on his dick. He’d never felt this before, there was a rush of static in his melon and his vision got spotty. His dick jolted and the pressure from Loki’s mouth leached away the hardness till he was soft once more. Thor was patting his head with his fins, and jerking his diamond shaped body towards the surface.  
“Air, for you should help.”

Tony obliged weakly his body felt fuzzy in a good way, his dick was fully sheathed. The ache of the erection was gone, Loki moved out of a whitish cloud looking very smug indeed. Tony took a few large breaths and then joined up with the waiting rays. He was ready to return the favor, Thor waited a bit before he decided tony was indeed ready, which was probably best.

His melon was working again he issued a few clicks scouting the area to make sure they were safe. Loki glided by winking at Tony as he dipped under his pectoral.  
“So we must move to breath, we dive and then met up and swim to the surface. I want to be launched, Loki will let you know what he wants.”  
Thor moved down deeper and Tony followed ready for this.

It was a graceful dance in the beginning, Thor wars now balanced on his beak. With a few soft clicks from his melon the manta quivered on his perch as they swam towards the surface. Thor was moaning softly as his body jerked, his movements less fluid as Tony continued the gentle echo pulses and bobbing his head while swimming giving Thor some friction.

Thor’s body convulsed into a ridge shape as they breached the surface and he flew from tony’s beak flying and back flopping into the water with a mighty splash. Tony winced that looked like it hurt, Loki was gliding by.  
“Use stronger echoes on me, I like it rougher. Thor is a sucker for making sweet love.”

Tony waited till he saw Thor’s slowly sinking shape right itself and start swimming towards them before he dove after Loki. Once assured that the other wasn’t dead he caught up to Loki near the sandy bottom of the sea. Loki looked pretty pleased about something.  
“The silver one that hangs with steve, he managed to do this repeating pulse, I’d like you to do that if you know how.”  
“Bucky and you?”

Tony tilted his head, he could see it. They both had a mischievous streak, though Loki seemed to have more if that was even possible. Tony directed his head off and tried out a few pulses settling on a low tone that was easily repeatable, like a train of pulses.  
“That is the one, mm this will be good.”  
Tony nodded and settled on the sand waiting for Loki to take the position on his melon and beak. Sliding his claspers over the beak with the chest and golls resting just above the apex of Tony’s melon.

The pectoral wings were bowed like Loki was hugging Tony’s head as he started the ascent upward apply the echo train. Loki vibraded under the pulses the claspers held on tightly as the swimming motion of his head, nuzzled his beak into Loki’s slit. Brushing against the claspers as they stiffened at this point the thrust was keeping Loki on top of him. He saw Thor as the continued Tony increased the strength of the echoes just a bit and Loki came in a small cloud and then he was up at the surface flying.

Tony felt a bit bad launching Loki into the air like that but he didn’t recall if Loki wanted that or not, just Thor wanting it. Loki landed on an edge and slid into the water without much fanfare. Thor joined them, getting Tony on his back with a friendly slap. Then flying over to his brother to bother him into returning to Tony.

“Ah friend Tony that was commendable!”  
Thor flapped about his brother in a very exciting manner, Loki seemed dazed and not up to his usual disdain towards his brother exuberance.  
“Oh yes very good, best even.”  
Tony could feel his beak flushing, slightly embarrassed.  
“I enjoyed my time too.”

“We’ll be in this area for a few more days, around the upwelling of cold water by the cove, do stop bye.”  
Tony nodded, he would if he got another squid boner. They parted and he returned back to the cove to rest and dutifully ignore the sad looking sponge.  
-  
“I just don’t know! Tones stopped in an area we know is frequented by the Ethrals but now he’s headed way up north.”  
Pepper sighed looking over the charts that carried the pings from the gps tracker. It had been months and she was still surprised when she received a new ping. The tracker was still holding on thankfully, they had Tones up in the arctic circle. 

She sighed as Rhodey looked over the multiple pings around south iceland. He looked over the food charts trying to figure out what Tones had been eating. He paused at the list of squid, a grin forming when he recalled how eager Tones had become for squid. Tones pretty much gave Pepper consent to touch his dick on multiple occasions.

“Pep, I think our Tones was snacking on squid, he’s moved around Iceland and is probably still eating them, that's why these are nocturnal.” He prods the cluster of blue pins to signify night time pings the red were inter mixed in the area near iceland.

“It just doesn’t make sense for him to go into the Labrador sea, we have no reports of any Ethrals seen there for hundreds of years.”  
Rhodey looked at the gold pin the most recent ping it represented Tones, it was gold like his dramatic petal pattern along his flanks. Tones had been very pretty, the whale looked like a sports car, though he kept that observation to himself.  
“Maybe he’s looking for something? See he’s clinging pretty close to the land masses here.”

Pepper scribbled something in her note book, she had that wrinkle in her brow It was adorable.  
“It's summer, possibly the safest time for him to go up there. Let's continue this later, focus on packing up for next spring’s sea trip. I’m sure we’ll see Tones there at least.”  
“Alright, I suppose I can’t do anything here right now anyways.”

They packed up the stuff, Pepper pulled a sheet of paper from her binder. A summary of sorts for Dr. Yinsen the man had wanted to be kept in the loop. As well as Dr. Banner though he was out studying larger whales at the moment. Dr. banner prefered the mysticeti clade and had finally been awarded funding to go up north for observation.

Pepper paused looking back at the cart with all the pins. She picked up a pink pin and placed it in the Greenland sea.  
“Rhodey I think we should let Dr. banner know that Tones may be in his neck of the woods.”  
She tapped a finger to her chin looking at the two pins on the board. If Bruce could get a sighting of Tones that would be great, the chances were slim; Pepper would take it.

Rhodey paused in shuffling the paper nest in an attempt to make it cleaner. He was losing in that aspect, wishing Pepper would embrace more technology.  
“Well looks like it, maybe Tone’s is just exploring, stretching his fins; But yeah I think Bruce would be pretty upset if we didn’t let him know.”  
Knowing Dr. Banner somewhat well after they worked together to get Tones out, Rhodey could say the other man would be ready to lecture them on the missed opportunities of documenting a caught and released whale doing quite well. Rhodey didn’t want to be lectured, he tapped the satellite phone.

“Here Pep, let the good man know,”


	4. Mass continuity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's big adventure vanquish evil foes, meeting old friends, and coming home has come full circle it seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got waylaid by other things that I usually prioritize over writing since I can get money from them but this year was a dud it seemed and nothing that I really worked on sold so I have tons of stock and no space. typical. I like tony at ten rings live practically in a singe room so this is undesirable and effects all sorts of things.
> 
> now that that con is over I shouldn't be as slow in finishing this. Famous last words

>   
>  Monthly recap  
>  Harley  
>  Age 8
> 
> Today mrs. Abbernathy, said anything. I’m going to talk about those colorful whales we covered in science class! They showed us the footage of releasing that red one back into the ocean. It was really cool that they used this hammock crane. The truck had a special bottom flat that let people fill it with water for the whale. Then they kinda put buckets of water on his skin so he wouldn’t get itchy. 
> 
> The red one had some really cool marks, like he was a racecar or something. I bet he could swim real fast too! They had rescued him and helped him but now it was time to let he back to the wild because he kept trying to escape, He didn’t know he was on land. The room they put him in was very small and he only had 3 toys, if I was a whale i’d probably try to escape too. 
> 
> I saw the lady feed him fish, they all looked the same. Leelee says it's like mac and cheese for them, but I like mac and cheese but not all the time, and not the leftovers. They get all sticky and gross I can get why the whale wouldn’t eat all his fish if they were sticky and gross. They gave him a mirror so he could look at himself and he passed the test, I still don’t get that do I pass the test when I look in a mirror?
> 
> I hope the whale has joined his family again, the ocean is big and is pretty lonely.

Bruce was in the colder sea during summer and it was still chilly. He was wrapped up in several layers with a massive green parka on top making him look huge. It was warm so he didn’t really mind that the faux fur on the hood was also green. So he looked like the jolly green giant and some of the other researchers were having a laugh because of it.

That was fine, nothing could really bother him out here on the ocean blue studying his favorite whales. They had spotted a truly massive bow head at one point. Might have been the whale singing earlier and while they had gotten rather close, it had avoided the ship entirely. From what Bruce had seen it was covered in scars from sharks, but mostly they looked like man inflicted wounds.

Which would reason why the whale seemed to be avoiding them. Bruce had thought that whaling had been abolished and that the whales would be less warey but the bowhead in particular was what he came to study. The others were doing studies on other whales some belugas, sei whales, and one lady was researching the sea birds.

His phone rang and he ducked out of the chilly air and made way to his tiny bunk.  
“Hello? Pepper!”  
He stilled listening to pepper on the other side of the phone. He sat down on his cot, and fished out a journal and started scribbling.  
“Tones is out here? Yeah I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

He continued scratching the information down, he would come back later and fix the messy scrawled words and coordinates.  
“Of course, I’ll call you if I see him. This is a great chance to see how well he’s thriving out here. I’m not surprised there is an awful lot of squid out here Pepper. He always seemed to have a thing for it.”

He laughed as Pepper made some remark about _knowing_ after all it had been she who Tones had presented his erect penis to time and time again hoping for squid. They had pavloved Tones, or Tones had attributed getting squid for erections, either way it had been most amusing.  
“Yeah, oh there is a rather large bull bowhead but he’s very boat shy. Scarred up pretty badly I don’t blame him, but it makes my job a bit harder. Talk to you later.”

He smiled at the phone tucking it back into the oversized parka pocket. Thinking about Tones out here, unusual might as well let the others know. An Ethral whale out here was far and few between.  
-  
The inky sea had been the best thing ever for Tony, not only had he bulked up, he’d also enjoyed the finer pleasures that Loki and Thor showed him. He was sad to bid them farewell as they parted ways. However they had to continue on their route to Australia, according to Thor for the ‘Magnificent Smackdown.’ Loki had rolled his eyes and then gave Tony a goodbye embrace.

They had been rather nice and Tony thought of the two brothers frequently as he traveled up north. He found a different type of squid north of the land mass and inky sea, it was a refreshing surprise as the new squid had a different flavor. It was also good, Tony was pretty sure if it was a squid he would probably like the way it tasted regardless of what type.

Eventually the squid wasn’t as common, Tony could still get them if he really wanted to but there was other fish. They were more common and he wisely decided to stick to what was more readily available as he wasn’t sure how long his trip up north would be.

He’d already mistaken a Sei whale for the bow head, simply because the whale had been hecking huge. Thinking back it was a bit silly but tony just simply didn’t know what type of whale he was searching out. He hadn’t met the so called seals yet as per Christine’s instructions. 

The Sei had set him straight after they got over the communication issue. She’d been surprised to see an ethereal so far but had been quite accommodating even with a calf at her side. Janet van Dyne the Sei had spoken, she was excited to see a lone alpha so far away. Inquiring if he’d heard of the one that got kidnapped by the land mites.

Tony had been surprised how quickly his, story had traveled. Though when he declined to comment on the landmites and instead ask if she was a Bow head. Janet scoffed, seemingly slighted by his forward inquires.  
“Oh no, Bow heads are rounded faced humpbacks. These sleek contours and lovely mercurial waves and patterns on my skin are unique to the Sei whales, the van Dyne family.”

Tony had tried to back track and apologize for it, but Janet had once again surprised him. She let it slide completely,  
“Our species rarely interacts, it’s not your fault at all. I for one am glad to see such a pretty looking alpha. I never did believe the stories, not when I had such a boring skin.”  
The whale equivalent of a sigh, which created a lot of bubbles and messed up Tony’s signal to noise ratio in his melon.

“Good news! Hulk is around saw him a few weeks ago, you need to go back the way you came through and turn, the Greenland sea is where Hulk tends to stay.”  
It was news, not great to hear he’d somehow made a wrong turn of all things but he’d thanked her profusely, and upon Janet’s insistence he did a few jumps to show off his ‘lovely coat’.

That was how he came to this place in the Greenland sea, having seen some seals. Though they bounced and bumbled away every time he surfaced near them. Having no luck in that area he skirted around the edges of the larger land mass. Scanning the water in hopes of finding a massive humpback, with a rounded face.  
-  
Tony had the great fortune of running into another fish ball, this time it was mostly sharks and birds. He helped when he could while giving the sharks a wide berth. He was much better at snagging fish from the ball now, he credited towards his time spent in the inky sea hunting squid.

Once the ball was reduced to shiny shimmering scales the sharks dispersed, they seemed smaller than normal. Not that Tony spent any great time with sharks, on his melon feed they just seemed smaller and more compact, probably better for the colder water. He rested at the surface thinking on where to look next for this elusive hulk.

A slap slap slap of webbed feet on his body alerted him to a tern. The bird was taking a break from flying it seemed as it walked up and down the length of Tony’s body. Tony slowly rolled on his side so he could see this bird for himself, the red accented Sam was there head cocked as he slapped his way up to look Tony directly in the eye.

“Finders keepers,”  
He announced opening his wings for emphasis.  
“You had Steve so worried, why didn’t you join them? I saw them later they needed you. You can’t just leave them alone with all that stupid.”  
Tony slapped his pectoral that was above the water into the water. It got Same to pause.

“Ty, wouldn’t let me say goodbye, I wanted to go. Then I got kidnapped by land mites, and now I’m looking for the whale called Hulk.”  
Sam rocked on his knobby oddly bending legs, they looked nothing like land mite legs but they did end in odd paddles.  
“Oh Hulk? Yeah you doing this for Nick? Lemme help you.”

“Wait!”  
Sam was already up in the air, Tony smacked the water again in frustration. He wanted to know where Bucky and Steve were so he could meet up with them. He’d like to see them again, his chest ached when he thought about them. It wasn’t his chest wound either, he rolled onto his other side looking at the sky for Sam.

He sunk under the surface and waited it out listlessly till another bird from Sam’s flock called out to him. Asking him to follow her, which he obliged it was better than floating around alone. They traveled a bit the bird kept circling back to him she was flying much too fast compared to Tony’s rather lax pace in the ocean. He was full of fish, he’d learned that he’d get a tummy ache if he swam to fast right after eating. Another life lesson he learned in the inky sea.

The rest of the birds fell into formation behind Tony they were flying a bit lower to the water. The waters got a bit chillier and he could see a few bits of ice on the horizon. Then there was a huge plume of a spout, Tony sped up some anticipating that this was the bow head that he was looking for, true to Janet’s description the bow head looked like a massive hump back with a squashed head. It was a hulking shadow in front of Tony’s eyes.

The slap of flat feet smacking against his skin, Sam was back.  
“Told him you were the same whale Bucky and Steve were mooning over, Hulk is pretty nice. He’s a bit touchy, in a cuddly way.”  
Sam walked over the melon checking it out.  
“Yeah, you look good. Glad you’re okay man. I heard from some other birds about an Ethral getting netted with Nick, that was you wasn’t it? I’ll let Buck and Steve know okay.”

Tony nodded his head carefully eyes watching the shadow shape get bigger and bigger. He was sort of apprehensive of it to be perfectly honest. Janet had been large but lithe and long. Tony could see why the other had named him “Hulk” for he was massive. Sam was still nattering probably taking advantage of Hulk’s slow advance.

“I may have told him you were an orphaned calf, if his mate was still alive, he'd probably have a bunch of kids. He’s really sweet with calves. Should have seen him a few weeks ago with the Sei whales. Blowing bubbles under them teaching them gosh it was cute. He’s even let my flock rest on him sometimes.”

Another spout and Sam opened up his wings, letting the wind lift him right off Tony’s back.  
“See you around, Tony! I’ll keep an eye out for the jerks.”  
Tony waved his fluke as farewell to Sam not able to break the eye contact with the large mass that was Hulk.

The bowhead stopped a respectful distance away from Tony, the pectoral flippers were much shorter than a humpbacks, so Tony closed some of the distance. He extended one of his pectorals in the hello gesture Janet had shown him, he was nervous. Hulk returned the gesture and the tips of their flipper touched, Hulk however moved away some.

“So you are the calf that Bucky fell for?”  
“Steve?”  
“Oh yes Steve too, but Steve fell for Peggy, and Sharon, Bucky hasn’t really shown any interest till you came along.”  
“Yes I am Tony.”  
“Hulk.”

The reason Hulk had moved was because his voice was deep rumbly thing and Tony could feel it in his chest. If he’d been closer it probably would have been unpleasant.  
“You’re here cause Nick sent you.”

Hulk was quick to cut to the chase it seemed, it was hard to tell if he was displeased at that notion. Or if the way his mouth curved into a natural frown was just making Tony think he was disappointed.  
“Actually a pod of dolphins, I came on their behalf. They couldn’t come this far north with the calves.”  
“Nick is getting desperate if he’s trying to get dolphins to recruit me.”  
“I think it's more because they were devastated by the whalers and the pod was mostly calves and it seems like everyone knows of your weakness to children.”

There was a long pause and Tony feared he’d messed up his chances by being too smart. Maybe he had to be quiet like when Ty had been around, he was about to back pedal when the Hulk spoke again.  
“I like you, I can see why Bucky and Steve liked you.”

Hulk turned and motioned with his pectoral flipper.  
“Come lets get somewhere more safe to talk about this initiative.”  
Tony could only nod, floored that it had been as easy as being himself to earn respect. Thinking back on all the other interactions he’d pretty much always been himself with everyone except Ty and maybe Happy and Falk but that had been with Ty.

Hulk lead Tony some ways into deeper cooler water and then they headed back up to the surface. Tony poked his whole head out checking out the iceberg? Hulk was already making his way to the shelf on the ice. Tony followed curious he checked out the ice looking for things it vaguely reminded him of the tank back with Peep and Odey.

He didn’t like it; Hulk didn’t seem to mind his nervous swimming back and forth. Tony was trying to find a spot he could face Hulk and not see the sharp smooth walls of ice. Finally he found an orientation where he was diagonal to Hulk but also not horizontal, it worked he wasn’t going to correct it to much.

“What are you? I chose this place so we could see out. No worries about an ambush. Hydra is pretty prevalent around here at night.”  
It made sense but the logical explanation wasn’t going to sooth Tony.  
“Reminds me of the tank, on land.”  
There was a rumbly noise from Hulk.

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that...so you are the one that made it out of the land mite’s land?”  
“I got stabbed in the chest by whalers and there were some good land mites that took me in and healed me, but then I think they wanted me? Odey and Peep got me out though. I miss them.”  
If everyone already knew the story there was no need for Tony to go into details at this point. Burce moved closer blocking out more of the ice, lifting his pectoral he carefully pulled Tony in for a hug.

It was so nice to bump up against another body even if Hulk was massive, Tony wiggled into the hug. Clicking happily as they carefully adjusted to each other.  
“So hydra is here too?”  
“Oh yes Sitwell is the leader here he’s a clubhook squid the biggest one around here. Buck and Steve came through here many moons ago and really did a number on them, but they never got Sitwell.”

As if Hulk knew that Tony was going to ask.  
“They’re doing fine, they did mention you a few times.”  
“They invited me to the inky sea with them, I didn’t get to go.”  
Hulk’s pectoral fin lightly patted at Tony’s side.  
“They went to the pacific in attempts to take down the giant squid leader, red skull? He’s got a red skull like mark on his head. An odd name for something without bones.”

“So why were they trying to take down Sitwell?”  
It made more sense to go after the leader first then take care of the confused and possibly jockeying for the top followers.  
“Well, once Sitwell is removed I’ll join the initiative. Most of the other squid here are content with not being hydra, since they’re supposed to be up here in the pelagic during the day. Not ideal for many squid.”

Tony nodded that sounded about right, he was sure he could take down Sitwell then he could go back on his journey to finding Steve and Bucky. He yearned for them, he wanted nothing more than to spend a cosy night wedge between them. It was the simple comfort of being included and wanted that Tony needed back.  
“I’ll do it, then you can help Nick?”  
“If you can bring down Sitwell, yes.”

“Will you help me?”  
Tony asked curious, Hulk sounded a bit like he was placating a child.  
“If you can find him, Buck and Steve were up here for many weeks and they never found a trace of him.”  
“I think I have a good idea, do you have any floating seaweed mats around here?”  
“Yes I am sure there are, why?”  
“Gossip centers, hydra has been trying to recruit fish.”  
“Tomorrow then we head for the mat.”

Hulk grew quiet his eyes closed as the bowhead seemed to fall asleep right there on the ice float. Tony attempted to leave only to have Hulk’s pectoral flipper clamp over him, holling him to Hulk’s side. Tony stilled if hulk wanted him here, he wasn’t going to complain. He wiggled a bit getting his dorsal fin in the right spot and closed his eyes. It was nice to be held while he slept, he felt safe here.  
-  
Back out to sea again Tony watched as Hulk seemed to change his pather when a boat seemed to start following them. It was a quiet craft, Tony didn’t like it much nervous that it was trying to hunt them. He also followed Hulk on the change of direction. Hulk groaned as the boat followed their change of course.

“They are in the way to the mat.”  
“We could swim under them? I could jump around out here you could go and then I’ll follow.”  
Hulk’s whole body wiggle was a strange thing to see.  
“I should smash the ship. Then they can’t follow.”  
“But you’ll get hurt, I’m a fast swimmer, I can catch up.”

“Fine,”  
Hulk’s body seemed to deflate, spouting and then diving from the surface. Tony waited till the fluke vanished before he made his way towards the ship. He did his first jump, and botched it and flopped hard on his belly, and thought about Thor. The manta would just jump right back out of the water after each flop. 

It didn’t matter that Thor had messed up one of his flops his exuberance just to show what he could do made the whole show, messed up flops in all far more exciting to watch. So instead of sulking about his failed jump Tony launched himself out of the water again, managing a full flip before smacking down into the ocean.

He got caught up in the jumping, it was surprisingly fun. The boat was still there watching him, it had gotten closer but it seemed to be keeping a distance. He could see land mites watching him, they had no harpoons. Mostly those crinkly papers that Peep liked, he thought he saw some red hair.

“Peep?”  
He swam a bit closer but paused he didn’t much care for the noise that was coming from the ship.  
“Tones!”  
Tony leaned back till he was vertical in the water, there was a green land mite calling his name? Oh it was the test mite, the one that had him do all sorts of things. The sling practice and blood draws. There was a huge spout next to him, water raining down and obscuring the boat.

“Tony, hurry before they attack.”  
“I know that land mite, i don’t think they’ll hurt us. They don’t have nets or harpoons”  
Hulk smashed his fluke down trying to threaten the ship. Hulk’s presence seemed to send the land mites into a flurry, but no harpoons or nets appeared just black boxes aimed at Hulk. Odey had one of those boxes, it was some sort of toy. Tony was sure it had kept Odey busy for hours and sometimes it played music.

Hulk backed away he looked vaguely confused and overwhelmed. There was a splash near the boat and a much smaller boat came into view. Tony slowly swam over it to greet Dr. Banner. He hooked himself on the edge of the boat and poked his head down calling out for Peep and Odey. Confused that they weren’t in the boat, the test mite was using a bigger black box on him but it didn’t hurt so Tony let him.

“Tones, you’ve put on a lot of weight, this is so good. Is he your friend?”  
Tony nodded his head once and wiggled off the lip of the boat sliding back into the water. Disappointed that his surrogate pod wasn’t there. He waved his pectoral like Odey had taught him to do and joined up with Hulk who was staying a bit farther away.

“Are you done?”  
“Yeah, lets go. Sorry about that I thought my friends would be there.”  
Hulk patted Tony on his flank, saying nothing more as they dived down and made their way to the floating mat.  
-  
The intel they picked up at the map was integral, a lot of the cleaner fish were quite willing to hand out all the info they had on Sitwell, who apparently was fond of terrorizing and harassing the fish at the mat. It even sounded like all they had to do was wait around and eventually Sitwell would show up.

Though not likely with hulk there and the fish said so, any time large whales came through sitwell was scarce. Tony didn’t count apparently which was slightly offensive but also good. So they devised that Hulk would give the place a berth of his melon, so he could see what was going on and then decide if he needed to intervene.

That was a comfort to Tony, having back up was good. Though he’d have to stall a bit if things went wrong, Tony was content to wait as the wrassies cleaned him, they were not as efficient as Christine had been. Thinking about the bright color wrasse in the warmer ocean, after everything was done maybe he’d come back and give her an update.

The first night was fine nothing much happened the fish seemed pretty chill to have Tony there. A few of them seemed a bit skittish but if what he’d gathered was true that Sitwell had been practically haunting this area it didn’t surprise him that the locals were wary. The second night Tony was a bit more agitated he’d not gotten a lot to eat on the second day and his tummy was making it's irritation known.

In the middle of trying to ignore the gurgles Tony had closed his eyes. It was then he felt some slither up his sides, multiple somethings. It made him jerk twisting in the loose embrace swiveling around to face the red eyes of a much larger squid. He caught sight of a sharp beak with in the folds of arms, it grinned.  
“Ah, an Ethral a baby… What are you doing out here?”

A tentacle traced under Tony’s jaw, he quivered as he pulled away just so. Needed to get Sitwell away from the floating weed raft, but also have him sufficiently distaracted. There were arms holding loosely on to his tail fin Tony carefully tested it. Sitwell only tightened the embrace when he moved with some strength. He could work with that.

“Ah, I wanted to join?”  
There was a cackle, the longer arms slid down Tony’s sides and he barely suppressed a shudder.  
“Oh really what would hydra do with a calf Ethral? I mortally wounded a full adult recently.”  
The eyes focused on Tony, he ducked his head. He was fairly big unless the squid assumed that the omegas were fully grown and failed to acknowledge their secondary gender.

“I uh have been abandoned, a trap?”  
The arms paused in the stroking and Tony stilled his slow swimming.  
“That's rather clever, it could work...hmmm. Red skull may have a better use for you though.”  
The arms slid down Tony stiffened.  
“What!”

“Ah you haven’t been touched yet, that is good, Red Skull has certain tastes.”  
The arms removed themselves from a certain area, Tony felt violated and pissed all together. He kept quiet they were sufficiently out of the way now.  
“Sir may I breath?”  
He wilted in the arms and Sitwell accompanied him to the surface, while telling him all about Hydra’s mission statement. How Tony would bring new life into the organization and get Sitwell a better standing.

That stopped of course when Hulk smashed into Sitwell from below. The arms tightened around Tony dragging him with the squid as they slammed back into the water. Tony latched on to the first arm that was closest and rolled his body tearing off the arm and lunging for another. Sitwell started to come too just in time for Hulk to smash his fluke down, rupturing the head of the squid. There was ink and a huge mess, Tony surfaced with a tentacle in his mouth unsure of the damage

As the water cleared Tony noticed that he still had all of Sitwell’s body minus an arm and his entire head. He was probably dead but he didn’t relinquish his hold on the arm, the body still a mass of jittering muscles. Hulk surfaced nearby, spouting looking immensely pleased with everything.  
“I could not, when he touched you. I am sorry I didn’t warn you.”  
“Thank you it's fine...I just need time…”

Tony bobbed his head as he rested at the surface, he just needed some time the fight had been scary. He’d been airborne more so than in any of his jumps. He’d had two very big scares in a row and he just needed something. Hulk’s mass pressed against his other pectoral flipper, that was nice. Hulk was calling out singing a victory song most likely Tony let it wash over him.

Tony sighed around the arm, his belly spoke up once more. His tongue had apparently been massaging it about how tasty the arm was. So about fifteen minutes after the fight Tony was eating Sitwell, feeling very justified in doing so. 

He dragged around Sitwell’s remains for a few days as they travel through the area. Letting the citizens of the area know that the reign of hydra was over in these parts. There was too much squid for Tony to eat and finally after several back to back meals of squid over about 3-4 days he was very tired of squid or rather Sitwell’s remains and let go of it.

Hulk was a good traveling companion in that he didn’t talk much, though they consumed vastly different foods and while Tony was proficient at bubble netting he knew he couldn’t do it the same way a pod of bowheads could. Hulk didn’t seem to mind and every night they would cuddle up at the surface even though Tony knew hulk prefered the deep depths for sleep.

As the water warmed Hulk became more agitated and finally after one particular bad day of hunting small bait fish. Leaving them with a meager meal, Hulk broke the silence. Or rather he spoke about going separate ways. He’d been singing tony to sleep for most of their journey, he’d been pretty much taking car of Tony like a baby bowhead. Tony supposed he was small enough to trigger Hulk into thinking he was a calf. He didn’t mind that so much, it had been a welcome comfort.  
“We must part ways here, I will search out Fury. Thank you Tony. ”  
“Thank you Hulk, I’ll see you again real soon okay?”

Hulk grinned as he waved a pectoral, disappearing into the deep. Tony made for the surface for some air the water was much nicer here. Definitely had less food and he didn’t blame Hulk, bowheads need a lot of food, if he was hungry Hulk tended to get testy. Maybe that's why Nick was so grouchy? He headed south following the gut feeling.  
-  
The mediterranean was a warm place, it was somewhat stymied with people though. Tony found himself sticking to the bottom of the sea more than the surface. It did bother him, but the fear of people trumped his nervous habits so here he was swimming along the bottom. It was also very dirty humans seemed to just leave everything in the sea. Boats, nets, stuff Tony couldn’t even identify.

Tony pokes his head out more at night, to check out the surface and see the stars. He was getting pretty good at using the to navigate, and now that he was father away from the north there was less of that odd swirly colors that impeded his view of the stars. 

Everything was much warmer compared to the north, the air was warm. The sea was warm and everything seemed to be just fine. Till one night Tony saw some clouds dip into the ocean and make a huge column of water. Curious he approached it, and was very curious till it seemed to make its way towards him. Nope he didn’t much care for that and high tailed it out of there. 

The storm that followed was very violent and there were two other water columns and at that point Tony dove down trying to escape from the violent surface. Ducking in and out from the strange surfaces on the bottom, finding an alcove that was big enough to have an air pocket he settled there for the night. 

He woke sore there were scrapes on his side that had happened when the currents and waves had smashed him against the dirty bottom. Whining as he stretched out and bobbed in the cave, he could hear something else clicking, maybe dolphins? He would love some company so he hesitant swam to the portal of the cave. Realizing that he had found one of the secret coves his mother had talked about.

He pokes his head out of the apatrue and sees something he never thought he would see here. A beta, a very familiar beta. The amber male beta postures defensively, making the agitated clicks that they all make before biting. Tony wiggles back into the mouth, hoping to make it harder for the beta he thought could possibly be Happy to bite him. Rocks were scratchy he knew, ramming a face into them wasn’t fun.

Tony called out trying to see why Happy was being so mean, there was a shape behind the amber body that came up in his melon.  
“Falk?”  
A bigger body of an omega covered the amber of the beta as it approached.  
“Tony, is that you? Happy.”

Tony cautiously exited the cave to see both Falk who was huge and Happy. He was so excited to meet up with others of his species, and being so lucky to meet up with ones he knew already. He greeted them happily, Falk chirped back but didn’t spin with him and Happy kept trying to keep himself between Tony and Falk.

“It's nice to see you Tony, looks like your an alpha. You got some battle scars too.”  
Falk tipped his head towards Tony not even bothered by Happy’s defensive behaviors.  
“Falk your really round like a duck.”  
“A what?”  
Happy got into Tony’s face, he wasn’t aggressive but he seemed on the defensive. Falk merely chuckled.  
“He’s complimenting me on my thickness, thank you Tony. Happy has really been providing for me. We are mated and traveling to the mating grounds to give birth.”

Tony rolled on his side showing Happy his belly, which worked Happy relaxed a bit and pulled tighter to Falk.  
“Oh!”  
Tony slowed in his swimming, he’d forgotten about babies. Same with mating, well mating to have kids doing it for fun had been really nice. He wasn’t sure if it counted doing it with mantas but no one else needed to know.

Falk craned his head back.  
“Come with us Tony? Happy is just super nervous. We could use another whale.”  
Happy nodded his amber body with little chocolate flecs relaxed, though his pectora was still touching Falk, Tony didn’t mind thinking about if it was Steve or Bucky he’d probably never stop touching them.

“Yeah, that would be nice. The ocean is kind of lonely.”  
Tony made sure to flash his belly at Happy as he fell into the space next to Happy. Deciding to try and orient himself so that Happy was always between him and Falk. it makes good company, and when Tony finds a smorgisborge of urchins he ends up providing for Falk and Happy as happy seems to be unable to grasp the rock smashing. Falk eats more than both of them combined and seems to always be hungry.

“He’s been an empty pit the last few weeks, thanks.”  
Tony offers another bit of urchin meat to Happy. Then he goes beak into the ground to rustle up a flounder for himself. Happy is lingering,  
“Hey you have sucker scars back here? Did you run in with that big squid in the inky sea? We went back a second time because Falk was craving squid…”

Tony perks up, munching through the flounder quickly so he could turn his attention back to Happy.  
“Yeah, but it's gone now.”  
“It is? That’s good Falk wanted to take the calf to the shallow cove up there, and I’d go out and hunt for him while he was safe. Thanks man, I heard that two older whales were unable to take it down.”

Happy was staring at Tony there was a sucker scar right above his slit. Where Sitwell has brushed against it, there were also tons of scratches all over his belly.  
“Did Ty do that?”  
Happy sounded angry.  
“No, the humans...Happy I got The Hulk to join Nick’s initiative. Nick saved me from whalers. It's a long story I don’t…. I want to go home.”

Happy was still checking over his scars, Falk was looming above them watching serenely.  
“We should have taken you with us, I really wanted to, expectations be damned.”  
Falk glided his pectoral over Happy’s dorsal chittering something to Happy. The frustration and tension in Happy’s body bled out.  
“He was willing to fight Ty and take you as part of our pod, the pod forbid him. I knew then Happy would make a great father.”

“Oh,”  
Tony managed still stunned that they had wanted him way back in the beginning. It was probably best though Tony was an alpha and that probably would have conflicted with Happy and Falk’s bond. Plus there were two omega whales Tony was hoping to run into again.

After that revelation they seemed to fit better in the pod format. Tony took the rear pretty happy to be able to see his friends. They entered an area that was very familiar, there wasn’t much activity in the melon so that meant even though it was time they had probably been some of the first to arrive. Tony was pretty pleased about that this way he couldn’t miss any arrivals if he was the first one there.

“We’ll be around Tony, gotta find a good play to birth.”  
“Safe.”  
Was all Falk had to add to happy’s statement. Tony chirped them a farewell and thanks song as he watched the two cling to the reef line. Tony peered down and patted his belly with his pectorals once he noticed how many clams and other shelled critters were below. He could collect up weight before everyone arrived. Maybe he could get a partner or two.


	5. Bernoulli's Principle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is reunited with Bucky and Steve!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :L so I'm hoping to end it with the next chapter, want to tie in some other things, also possible art. Plus we need to experience Steve's longevity love making with Tony.

> ‘Dear diary,  
> It was simply amazing to see Tones the Ethral whale in cahoots with the bowhead the locals call ‘The Hulk’. They seemed to be communicating, according to the sounds we picked up on the underwater ears. That tone’s calls had changed pitch to better communicate to the bow head is simply astounding. Cross species communications!
> 
> Even with the truly bizarre behavior shown, tones splashing around greeting me like I was something special. The ship crew let me know that it might have been a distraction as they tracked the bowhead making haste to be elsewhere. Yet it came back to Tones, perhaps it won’t be as hard to observe now? Now that it knows we aren’t a threat?
> 
> They swam together for quite a ways it's only a shame we lost track of them! With the precious bits of footage we did get of them together. From the start where it looks like Tones is trying to sooth the bigger whale, to the end where Tones is dragging around the remains of a very large specimen of squid. Much to the delight of the local seabirds. 
> 
> Tones doesn’t seem to like it when the seabirds land on him. So much thrashing! Other reports are from the local fishermen that had indicated that there was a big squid poaching their nets. Also apparently it has attacked other Ethrals as well, I'm on my way to visit the captain of the boat that has the images. Unfortunately the quality looks to be poor as the fight occurred at dusk.
> 
> This has been most enlightening and I look forward to what the next day brings. --Bruce’

-  
Tony had managed to put on some more weight as the other whales slowly trickled in. Ana had been the first of the female pod to arrive. She had been quite pleased to see Tony, very little about Ty was mentioned thankfully seemed like the pod had assumed he would either not show or not be alive. Tony did his best not to feel guilty about Ty at all. He’d had a few whales flirt with him, though nothing super serious yet it was still early after all.

Most of the whales coming in were paired off ones that were ready for calving. Within the week there was a lot more chirps in the water of the newly born calves being vocal about everything. Tony really enjoyed it watching the calves at the shallow sands playing and prodding for milk.

Happy had introduced Tony to their newborn son, sporting the strange newborn coat of tan. There were already dark flecks in the tan. The child investigated Tony poking him in several places.  
“You’re his first Alpha if you don’t mind?”  
“It's fine, hey!”

Tony chirped at the calf that was poking him in the belly that was pretty uncomfortable.   
“Mark, stop it.”  
“Ahhh daaad!”   
The calf darted around Tony’s flank avoiding happy’s beak.  
“He’s got funny marks on him…”  
“Scars, Mark the round one there is from a big squid.”

Mark cuddled under Falk’s fin as Tony rolled slowly to show the sucker scars. Luckily the vigious pokeing to his underside stopped and it became more of a learning thing than poke Tony till he pooped. Thankfully, at the end of the teach and learn that Tony had been calling it to himself Happy presented Tony with a large fish. Probably part of a marlin based on it's firm texture.  
“Thanks Tony, really helped. He’s the first of the season and Falk wants him to be ready.”

Soon the whole female pod arrived and the sandy shallows were pretty much packed in every direction an Ethral could be seen. There were many pod mates that had grown into their colors and it was nice to see them all. He was very happy that Ana had nosed him under her pectoral like she did when he was still a calf. There was no grilling of his person for stories since apparently the stories traveled around and pod knew who was the whale was. He had Christine to thank for that but it was nice not having to divulge his life story with every single whale in the pod.

Hunting was a bit harder now Tony found himself traveling father away from the warm sandy shoals to find something to eat. He’d found himself a nice big stingray and was currently chewing the tail off so he could eat the flat disc part in peace when a larger Ethral called out to him.  
“Hey there handsome going to save some of that for me?”

Tony spat out the tail and picked up the edible part ready to swim for it. He’d spent the time hunting it, he wasn’t going to let a bigger whale take his catch.  
“Hey JERK are you going to share?”

The bigger whale was gaining on Tony with ease probably cause the ray’s flat body kept slowing him down and getting stuck in the way of his melon. He could see that the whale was a big Omega there was extensive scarring on one side, sucker scars. Tony slowed there was a second one following the scarred one.  
“Punk you scared him.”  
“He’s the one running off with the food.”  
“How is he supposed to know to bring it to you, if you’ve given him a fright.”  
“Gawd Steve why are you so rational.”

Tony moved closer to the bickering omegas, sure enough the big one was silver, and the other was the blue galaxy. Neither looked heavy with calf and Tony couldn’t help but feel a spark of hope that they’d searched him out. Though dimly upset that even though he’d grown so much he was still so small compared to them.

It sounded like Bucky was hungry so Tony carefully pressed the stingray into Bucky’s flapping jaw ceasing their argument. Even though Tony’s tummy made a disagreeable noise as he did it. Steve moved around and Bucky busy eating stayed and they squished Tony between them.  
“Stingray is so good! Damn.”

“I’ll get more,”  
Tony swam to the floor again Steve followed, watching at first, on the third ray Steve helped but ate that ray.  
“Hey! At least share.”  
“He’s in heat, Tony.”  
Steve ate the ray quickly while watching Tony, Who falutered with a clam that he’d been smashing. Since he needed something to keep his belly from make noises too.  
“Oh, I should?”  
“Yes go, he’s been waiting.”

Tony made haste after he sucked up the soft body of the clam, feeling stupid that he’d not figured out the odd musk in the water was Bucky. Tony slid up next to Bucky on the side that wasn’t damaged.  
“Hey there handsome, still hungry?”  
“Nah I saved some for you. Clever Tony didn’t know you could hunt stingrays.”

Tony pinked as he ate the remainder of the second ray.  
“I’ve learned a lot.”  
“I’ll say, ready to learn something else?”  
Bucky brushed his belly against Tony’s winking an eye as he let out a pleased chattering noise. Steve was watching on the sides, he was purpleing some but made no move to join them. Tony merely rolled and presented his belly with his erection, the musk in the water really helped get him aroused. He didn’t need to eat till he was stuffed to get hard at least.

“Mm I’ll be good. Unlike someone! Who can’t return my dick.”  
Bucky chirped at Steve who responded by turning a deeper purple color.   
“Maybe he likes having you close, a captive audience.”  
Tony chimed in the banter was relaxing him, he nearly forgot about Bucky slotting into him as his own penis slotted into the folds of Bucky. They were very smooth and silky but as Buck twitched he could feel the strength.  
“Oh, wow.”

“Yeah best thing ever? You feel pretty good to Tony. nice and toned.”  
“It's different.”  
He could feel Bucky’s thoughts and got a distinctive frown. They spun lazily using their pectorals to hold on to each other as Steve made sure that they could get the breaths they needed.  
“I had fun with Thor and Loki.”  
Tony managed after Bucky finished clenching over his dick. The bond brightened, there was laughter and Bucky bobbed his head.

“Is that you in my melon?”  
Tony asked quietly, the bond was all rosy shades.  
“Yes I’ve chosen you as my bond mate, Steve will join us shortly but he’s decided to wait on kids wants to get more experience.”  
Tony rubbed his chin against Bucky as he started another wave of flexing, Tony was having a hard time holding a coherent conversation. He could hear Bucky offer words of encouragement, especially after he came the first time. They were at the surface and he was taking big gulps of air and then they rolled so Bucky could breath.

Bucky flexed just so, the muscles pulled Tony in tighter, the pressure was nothing like Loki’s mouth, the heat was welcome and he felt in a sense that Bucky was holding him in place. He felt Steve on his right nuzzling his pectoral. Bucky dipped his head, bumping the left pectoral.  
“This one’s mine punk,”

“Wha…”  
Tony was distracted by Steve suckling on his right flipper as Bucky tugged on him. His vision whited out as he came in a quivering mess, Bucky was still embracing him and their flukes were twined. He could feel Buck’s muscles milking his penis, which was harder, it felt widder maybe the prongs were in use now. Bucky rubbed his beak along Tony’s and he came again. Trying his best to press into Bucky it felt right.

Steve flipped them again, he released his hold on Tony’s flipper, tony sighed fresh sweat air. As he tried to work out the rhythm Bucky had set. He noticed Steve on the other side with his mouth on Bucky’s flipper. Connecting the two as Bucky slowed the pace so he could match it better. Bonding marks! Tony stiffened as he came again, eyes zeroing on the markless flipped on Steve. His body twitched he could feel his penis softening.

Bucky however was still holding on, his own dick was nestled in Tony’s front rubbing gently at his folds. It felt really nice, He quivered in Bucky’s hold there was a mark free flipper for him as well, Tony telegraphed his intent and Bucky made a noise of agreement. Tony latched his mouth on the mark free flipper the one that didn’t have all the extensive scarring.

A feeling of contentment that wasn’t Tony flooded his mind. Bucky carefully withdrew and they both bobbed up to the surface with help from Steve. Tony nipped Steve’s free flipper ignoring his newly minted bonding mark’s soreness as he wrangled a better hold on Steve. Who seemed to be a tease on purpose. 

There was a gentle tug on his free flipper, Bucky was there working on his own mark. The Bond burst into Tony’s mind loud vivid and warm, it felt like Peep when she hugged him. Two minds coming to his and wrapping him up safe. He cried out arcing his body and splashing, so excited! He launched himself into the air, trying to describe his feelings with the jumps and flips, Steve joined him, and then Bucky as they danced in harmony.

The show ended near the sandy shallows, and as Tony stopped his jumping he noticed they had quite a few Ethrals watching them. Tony still instantly worried, there was a gentle tug on his flipped by Steve, and he felt amusement speckle the bond from bucky.  
“We got admirers!”

Happy was in the congregation he was very vocal in his congrats to Tony, in fact as Tony focused on the songs. He realized with a pang in his chest that most of the Ethrals were signing for him and his bond mates. He blinked and tucked his head under Bucky. At least half the pod had seen his joyous uncoordinated jumps and flops.

There was no derission from the bond and the songs were all very nice in a way that made Tony’s face pink to the point it hurt a bit. A calf probably Mark launched itself out of the water trying to mimic one of Tony’s jumps and flopping.   
“Go on punk show’em, I’ll be here.”

Steve chirped an agreement as his omegas took position at his flanks and Tony nodded to himself. Launching himself out of the water and his mates were following in a seamless arc. The whole pod joined in as they swam around the island stopping back at the sandy shallows and dispersing. 

Ana swam up and gave Tony a pop with her beak on his melon, a love pat. Tony turned a very deep shade of pink.  
“I’m proud of you Tony, Maria would be too.”  
-  
Tony wasn’t sure what happened after that, but he woke up in the warm sands with Steve nestled next to him but also a bit under him. Bucky was nearby according to the bond. Soft sweet pastels filtered through it bucky was certainly happy. Tony wiggled over and settled more on top of Steve, leaching the warmth from his back.

Steve shook a bit in protest, knocking up some silt as he rolled out from Tony. But used his flipper to push Tony face first into the sand, then settle on top of him. The bond burst into bright oranges as Steve made a big show of wiggling around and finding the best spot. Tony tried to shake Steve off, and failed and then Steve somehow managed to increase his weight. 

Pinning Tony to the sand, he jerked confused and then the bond enveloped him as he felt Steve’s pouting and Bucky’s joy at being the top of the pile. There was a sweet scent that lingered in the water around Bucky and Tony managed to get out of the pile. Running his beak along Bucky, pausing at the pelvic slit he tilted his head and entire body as he rotated in the water to face them.

Bucky’s bond was bursting in pleasure, a rainbow of colors. Steve was still laying in the sand but he also seemed happy if a bit confused.   
“Bucky?”  
Tony chirped a bit confused the smell was a good smell but he was confused at the sense of pride.  
“I’m pregnant!”  
Bucky nosed Tony’s belly, Steve swam up his bod sparkled as well and he joined the nosing. Tickling Tony till he needed to surface and breath.

They returned back to the sandy bottom, bucky resting on his side with a bond equivalent sigh, Tony was belly down again. He liked pressing his chest against the warm sand it was soothing on his chest scars. Steve kinda laid on top of them perpendicular, mostly confused but also quite content to bask in the sun.

“Hey Buck, does this feel good against your scars?”  
“Yeah punk, really good...I gotta hook you up with the puffer fish stuff. It's good. All the aches and sores fade away.”  
Tony perked up that sounded really good. Steve grumbled about it though the bond dimmed a bit.  
“Not for long alright promise me Bucky?”  
Steve sounded really insecure about something, Tony felt Bucky shift in the sand some to poke Steve in the face.  
“I promise.”

Tony fell asleep and it was Steve who nudged him awake. There was a small bit of sea stars and urchins for snack. Tony watched Bucky and Steve eat first and then ate the remainder.  
“Hey so, we know your story Tony but I want to talk about mine.”  
Steve was pressed up against Bucky as if he was supporting him, he probably was Bucky’s bond had turned a bit ashen. Tony was a bit confused at first.

“Oh were you the one Sitwell was boasting about?”  
He could feel the surprise coming off Steve and Bucky, Tony offered his fluke and sure enough the suction cups matched for the most part.  
“The Hulk and I took him down. Then I ate his body for a few days.”

He could feel the surprise in the bond but also when Bucky pressed his pectoral against Tony’s the one with Bucky’s bond mark on it.  
“The squirt did it! Stevie and I were worried he’d be an issue then next time we went to the inky sea and wanted to let you know… Doesn’t matter now! I worried for nothing. Steve you can do the worrying now. I don’t like it.”  
“No one likes worrying Buck.”

They were invited by another Ethral to go on a hunt, Tony roused first his belly complaining, followed by Steve and Bucky as they joined up with a makeshift pod mostly males.  
“There is a school of tuna, if we do this right we should all get maybe one each.”  
Tony listened intently at the plan, tuna was a much bigger fish. If they all got one if should be a good meal for the rest of the day and then some.

Tony was paired with another male Alpha he was a bit longer but not by much but as it turned out they were a similar age so it didn’t matter. Tony had been hoping that as he aged he’d get bigger but there hadn’t been much headway in that. Nor did he want to ask about that. They were to go in the very front and scare the fish, and do some bubble netting. The other male was a deep green and he opted to follow Tony’s lead.

The hunt had been most successful, Steve was holding a second tuna for Bucky. There had been enough confusion for some of the quicker eaters to nab another fish. So Bucky and the green alpha were carrying their second fish for another pod member. Bucky was not slower but he was definitely a sloppier eater Tony sucked up some of the bits Bucky had scattered. His own fish finished.

Bucky scarfed down the other fish, Tony repeated sucking up the scraps and half way through he popped a boner. Foolishly assuming only squid would do that to him, apparently his body didn’t care what high quality protein he gorged on.  
“Oh is that for me?”  
Bucky homed in on Tony.  
“Dinner and exercise.”

“This happens when I eat a lot, what about Steve?”  
Bucky looked at Steve who was hanging back some, tilting his pectoral a bit.  
“Nah, he’s got a phobia about horizontal sex, we can try vertical see If you can do it. Then next time you and him can bang?”  
“Yeah, thats sounds good.”  
Tony hoped he could maintain the vertical orientation so he could spend some time like that with Steve.

“Let's do it closer to the shore,”  
Steve nudged Tony in the dick, as he spoke sliding away as he swam, bucky followed and Tony swam a bit slower not really fond of the drag on his dick. 

At the shallows Bucky pressed up against him as the wiggled around to slot together in the vertical orientation. There was just enough water to give Bucky a few feet of maneuvering room as Tony slid his pectorals over Bucky’s and held each other. Bucky’s dick was out but then Steve was down there mouthing it. Tony watched as best he could, concerned.

Unlike Loki’s mouth Steve had sharp teeth, and he was a bit worried for Bucky. Though the way bucky quivered in his pectoral fins really told him that it was fine. He ran his beak along Bucky’s jaw waiting for Steve to move so he could fit his dick into the smooth folds of Bucky, and have him slot his dick into Tony’s little pouch stretch it, it felt good. Tony felt himself pinking at the thought. 

Steve did move but instead of away he merely mouthed Tony’s dick and that was a surprise! Tony jolted in surprise the bond going bright as he felt Steve lick and suck on his dick being very clever as to not get any of his teeth against his sensitive spots. Tony opened his mouth and uttered a high-pitched cry, Bucky clicked at him. Rubbing his beak along Tony’s jaw, didn’t stop him from coming in Steve’s mouth.

“Don’t break him jerk!”  
“Just a taste punk.”  
Steve was gone from his dick and Bucky was there sliding over his trembling cock as the folds settled neatly over it. Bucky grinted a bit getting his cock into the the little hood above Tony’s dick took a bit of fussing. Probably helped that Bucky’s dick was a bit more flexible than Tony’s.

They were no longer vertical and Tony was trying his best but it seemed he needed to beat his tail three times the amount to Bucky’s one. It was more of a diagonal at this point they’d managed to do the air thing but now it was looking that Tony wouldn’t be able to couple with Steve in the conventional way. It was his hope there would be some sort of exception at one point.

“Hey, hey Tony where are you wondering? don’t do that I’m right here. It's okay babe, mmm come on come back to me. We can figure it out with Stevie. Later.”  
Steve came up from behind pressing his belly along Tony’s back lifting Tony’s side back to the vertical.  
“Tony,”  
Steve called quietly as he pressed his dick against Tony’s flank.

“You can suck me off, I’d be really happy if you did.”  
“Oh!”  
Tony wiggled between them as they did the full bond squish where they pressed their happyness inwards till it encompased everything. Everything was warm, like he was being held. Bucky clenched around him as he wiggled in and out of the pouch it stretched nicely and tony’s penis seemed to widen at the tips as he came once more.

As by some unspoken agreement form Steve and Bucky they refused to let Tony think about anything. The bond was very active, Bucky was letting the sensation of Tony being in him seep into the bond, and to reflect this Steve let the feeling of his cock smoothly gliding along Tony’s back across the bond. Tony was trapped in the middle and he enjoyed every bit of it hoping the stretch of fullness and the tightness of Bucky spread both ways. How the muscles would rhythmically clamp around his dick as they milked him to another orgasm. 

He hoped with all his person that Bucky could feel what his clever body was doing to him, and for Steve to feel it as well. There was a pause from Bucky and suddenly he withdrew from the embrace. The bond was still flowing both ways, Tony found Steve’s need for release cascading through the bond like soft silver shimmers. 

Tony twisted to face Steve to find the other at the surface, Tony took a breather and then inspected Steve’s dick. Bucky was there probably to offer tony something to steady on. He opened his mouth and licked at Steve’s dick it was curious. The texture was similar to his own skin but not quite, there wasn’t much flavor besides salt and skin. Probably best wouldn’t want Steve to have dick that tasted like squid.

Bucky hit him.  
“Hey you’re broadcasting, Steve’s so purple I think he might die.”  
“Sorry!”  
Tony pinked as he wrapped his beak around Steve gently, trying not to think of squid or how he used to drink milk like this. He sucked gently, and was rewarded with Steve shuddering above him. With the bond Tony didn’t stop broadcasting it, but he tried his best to envelope Steve in a mental hug. 

Running his tongue along Steve’s length as he used Bucky to keep himself steady so he wouldn’t accidentally rock into Steve’s body to hard. He really didn’t want to hurt Steve at all. He could feel Steve’s muscles flutter around him, Bucky was also plying the bond with his post orgasmic haze. It muddled everything for Tony but it was a good confusion. He sucked a bit harder and Steve came with a cry. 

Tony sucked up the ejaculate and decided he liked the flavor of Steve, which Bucky churred at and Steve’s belly flushed as he thought that. They made way back to the soft warm sands and settled down to bask in the haze of their orgasms.  
-  
Tony wasn’t exactly sure how he ended up on his back, side smushed into a firm rubbery surface. His chest had the dull ache again from not moving, as it usually did after naps or sleep. He would just keep swimming but after long periods of movement it hurt more, a sharper sort of ache he really couldn’t win with it.

Why he was on his back? He peered around wiggling his pectorals slowly trying to think, he’d been laying belly down in the sand. Probably with Bucky, so that body next to him, or nearly on top of him was Bucky. He pushed with one flipper, nope he was stuck it seemed for now. Tony hoped Steve would show up and help, though in the end he ended up dozing off again.

Bucky was making him lazy, or maybe the warm temperatures where, or he could blame the bond. The other two seemed to enjoy drowning his overactive mind in a plethora of senses. Tony didn’t mind that it was nice to not overthink everything. Sand was warm water was nice and Bucky shifted more further trapping Tony into the sand. Might as well nap some more.

A couple minutes later he felt part of the bond light up, Steve seemed pretty excited about something. Tony craned his neck up looking and then clicking for Steve, who wasn’t anywhere in the general vicinity. Steve brushed him via the bond and Tony relaxed back into the sand he could wait.

The soft murmur of vices woke Tony up a bit later, he didn’t stirr right away content to just lie down and listen to his mates chatter.  
“We’re really lucky Stevie,”  
“Of course we are, our Alpha is the best.”  
Bucky moved from Tony’s side probably to surface for som air. The movement jarred Tony from the sandy floor he wiggled a bit to right himself and then followed Steve to the surface.

Steve was carrying a round prickly fish carefully in his mouth. Tony tilted his head at it was he spouted water onto Bucky, fair play for squishing him before on the ocean floor.  
“What is that?”  
“Steve got us a puffer fish! Because he cares for us wounded boys!”  
“Okay,”  
Tony looked at Steve who was of course purpling, Bucky took the puffer gently in his mouth giving it a squish. The fish didn’t look like it was enjoying this at all, almost seemed resigned.  
“It’s just I know you guys ache and if this helps you, I’m not against it; but I do worry.”

Tony could feel the bond, Bucky who was apparently getting his first hit off the fish, softened at Steve.  
“Stevie the romantic, I’m swooning. You should keep an eye on Tony here it will be his first.”  
Bucky was handing off the fish to Tony, he held it awkwardly in his mouth. Mimicking the chomping bucky did and then let the fish go. Watching it try to swim away as it bobbled to the surface.

Bucky was tilting so one of his pectoral flippers was in the air and he flopped it like he was sending off the fish, in the wrong direction of course. Steve came up and tucked Tony under his pectoral using his beak to poke Tony into place. He felt a bit light headed and it was like he was back in that tiny tank on land. Back when he’d been recovering from the harpoon, everything was muzzy hard to really think. Though his chest didn’t ache so much and that was nice.

He wiggled up to Steve pressing himself into the crook and sighed he was safe. Bucky was spinning along in place, Tony pressed his beak against Steve’s trying to see if he could find the tickle spot Bucky had told him about. However being ‘high’ really muddled him so instead of trying to sneakily tickle Steve. He’d said ‘tickle, tickle’ while nudging Steve with his beak. He still got Steve to laugh so he counted it as a win.

“You feel better Tony?”  
“Yeah, but not as sharp...it's good but I don’t need it. Don’t wanna have you worry.”  
“Oh Tony.”  
Steve held him closer as they watched Bucky try to orient himself and fail. He was belly up with his head lower than his tail, and accusing Steve and Tony of being upside down. 

“Bucky you’re upside down!”  
“Am not, I’m rightside up…”  
Bucky ducked his head and looked at the surface of the ocean. He wiggled his tail from side to side like a shark.  
“Did Steve swap the surface again? I don’t trust him, he’s too smart.”

“Come on Steeb, lets fix him.”  
Tony tugged on Steve’s flipper as he tried to escape from Steve’s embrace. Didn’t work and he felt the only reason they moved closer was because Steve was moving. Fixing Bucky turned out to be tickling him into the right orientation.  
“Steeeeeb,”  
Bucky wailed as he swam right side up.  
“Stop hogging Tony…”

That was how Tony found himself wedged between two Omegas, as he came down from the high. Bucky must have taken a bigger hit, as he was still nattering on about nonsense at this point. The bond which Tony wasn’t able to access while high was a big fuzzy ball of nervous. That was probably why Steve worried, he rubbed his face against Steve’s side while trying to pat down the fuzzies of the bond.

Steve was very receptive towards it, He leaned into Tony, which leaned into Bucky who managed to aggressively lean back. Still complaining about sea cucumbers and their butt fish. Tony chirped and agreed with Bucky that eating and pooping from the same hole was weird, which somehow egged him on to talk about those ‘devious starfish fuckers’ with language that made Steve purple.

The mild ache was back, Tony decided that getting high while it did manage his pain wasn’t something he was going to do frequently. Especially if it cut him off from the bond with his two beloved omegas. Family was first for Tony, he didn’t have an issue with wanting to escape the dull aches of old wounds but seeing Steve all frazzled? It wasn’t worth it, plus Tony could just ignore it most days anyways.


	6. Reynold's Number

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A family reunion of sorts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news, chapter seven is just going to be an epilogue with art. I suppose it's good news for me. :)
> 
> ahhh I forgot to add the tagging bit

 

>   
>  Request for research grant
> 
> To research along the recorded path of the released Ethral whale. To document the finding about this particular whale and its ecological impact on the ocean.
> 
> Status: granted
> 
> Rhodey grinned at the paper, he’d helped Pepper write the report and this was the best news. Combined with his recent purchase of a catamaran. Even though he’d been eyeing the trimarans, they simply wouldn’t do with what Pepper wanted and Rhodey wisely followed that. A happy Pepper was a happy Rhodey. She was watching that clip again shot from Bruce’s expedition of Tones interacting with a massive bowhead.
> 
> The other clips covered Tones jumping around, and checking out Bruce’s rescue boat. Pausing on his specific calls for them, Pepper had turned to him after they watched it twice,  
>  “He’s calling for us, he recognizes Bruce and associates us with him, this is amazing.”
> 
> Pepper had been crying when she watched it, He wondered how much she’d cry if they ran into Tones again on their research. The boat had some live in space, that was being filled with research instruments. Pepper had even wrangled an ultrasound machine, granted it was an older model but she’d written something about utilizing it in communications and paper had been so interesting, that a company had bequeathed it to her for her research. Rhodey honestly didn’t really understand it, but he made sure there was enough room for it in the cabin.
> 
> He insisted on the mesh sling that could be installed between the two hulls as extra surface area, it could also be installed on a lower set up so they could sit on it and be slightly submerged. He’d pitched it as a whale hammock, though had no idea if it would even work since most Ethrals seemed incredibly leery of human watercraft.
> 
> This was to be their honeymoon, and Rhodey had planned as much as he could. Getting tips from others where there was the best sea life sightings along the strange path Tones had taken once they’d let him go. Along with the tunes on the aqua speakers that he’d sung to Tones, hopefully to entice Tones to coming back if he heard the turkey in the straw again.

Tony was pretty happy, swimming with his two omegas, they were in the inky sea getting fat and happy. Or rather Bucky was getting fat, then they’d play in the shallow bay, luckily they stayed away from a sad looking sponge that Tony had molested quite a while back. They had left the breeding area once some of the other established pairs had, since they didn’t have any claves it was probably best if they did go.

The last few weeks at the southern pod meet was mostly for teaching claves anyways. Tony had enough of Mark’s prodding to last a lifetime, and he hoped secretly that Bucky’s calf wouldn’t be as pokey. Or if it did maybe just poke Bucky instead.

Tony spent a lot of his hunting time gathering squid for Bucky who was now a bit slower and wasn’t catching as much squid as he normally did. Steve of course was helping but he seemed more interested in bringing Tony the squid. Tony felt bad about handing that squid to Bucky so he’d eat Steve’s gifts. Bucky was also a soft grouchy in the morning hours. When Bucky frowned his whole face kinda scowled. It was pretty intimidating, Tony didn’t much like that expression being directed at him so he did his best to accommodate the morning grouches.

Which was him mostly letting Bucky lay on top of him in the sand, or not talk about food till Bucky mentioned being hungry. Luckily the grouchy period only lasted a few months and they made their way way up north. Tony kept his eyes peeled for Janet the sei whale but didn’t find her or any of her kind. The waters became very cold, Steve and Bucky were talking about another inky sea that they’d found during their fight with Hydra.

Tony suspected they were checking in to see if hydra was indeed gone from this area. He didn’t mind but it would have been nice to be included, or he thought it would. Though thinking about Sitwell and the grasping limbs entwined around his tail made him nervous so he decided it was better not to know.

The squid were a bit bigger but less abundant in the colder inky sea, they had a richer flavor. They also feasted on the many fish they found, Tony was a bit frustrated though why was there more fish in the colder waters? Steve didn’t seem to notice at first, but Tony did and glued his side to Bucky as they continued north the cold water agitated Tony’s chest Bucky seemed to be low key irritable again.

They met up with Sam, who complained about the cold while walking up and down Tony with his slappy feet. Tony peeved about the said slappy feet, wondering what advantage those wide feet even provided Sam besides annoying values. At least Sam’s antics had Bucky grinning and they did a fish ball hunt fairly well, even if Bucky was super fat, according to Sam.

Steve and Bucky decided not to go to the northern pod meet up, mostly Bucky who didn’t want his friends to see him swollen. So they spent most of their year up in the north cold seas, drifting down to the warmer areas when either Tony or Bucky got finicky about the cold in their joints. They found a place that was rich in crabs and that was a worthy detour. Bucky was very pleased to be able to hunt for himself again, the crabs were slow enough that the ‘great flying buck blimp’ could catch them.

Tony put on a lot more weight as well finally filling out to be a decent sized alpha, he tried to stop comparing himself to Steve and Buck. Since they were a few years older than him, also omegas were just huge. Falk had been huge when Tony thought back on it when they first left the pod he’d been bigger than the two betas. There was no way Tony was ever going to be as big as Steve and Bucky, though he felt Steve was certainly trying with all the feeding.

Tony was very pleased with everything, he did wish he could couple with Steve, but as of yet Steve seemed uncomfortable. Though as bucky got larger the other seemed less inclined to help them if they did couple, as well as have sex all together. Tony was pretty sure it was the colder water he really didn’t want to do it if his chest was achy. Thankfully Bucky ended up grousing so much about the cold that they’d started back down towards warmer waters trying to find a good medium that wasn’t as cold and had plenty of food.

The found themselves traveling along the gulf stream. There wasn’t as much food as the cold north but they seemed to be in tune with some sort of annual gathering of sharks so there was food, Shark wasn’t Tony’s favorite after he tried it, would have preferred the cold mackerels that he was given on land to it.  
-  
There was a familiar echo traveling in the water right after their third successful shark hunt. Luckily for Tony, Bucky was eating the most. He didn’t much care for shark and was supplementing his food with clams and crabs that he’d found around the floor. Tony perked up repeating a few of the notes, it was a song Odey had sung before.  
“We should go this way! I think I hear part of my land pod.”

Steve offered a fin shrug.  
“We’re going that way anyways.”  
Bucky finished up the shark and followed at a sedated pace, Steve pulled up the rear. Tony didn’t mind being in front he was excited about the tune he could hear distantly but that meant they were looking for him?  
-  
Rhodey was admiring the horizon as the catamaran floating on the waves. They’d stopped because Pepper wanted to sample the water, do some tests. Rhodey had nodded and turned on the hydrophones to broadcast the turkey in the straw song, hoping Tones would show up. That whale couldn’t resist the urge to get Rhodey wet.

He hoped that they would see Tones, but it was a big ocean and there was no way of telling if the gulf stream was a normal way of traffic for the Ethrals, or it was just Tones being lost and traveling up the path of least resistance. He didn’t dip his feet in the water having seen a huge squall of sharks earlier and unable to trust the ocean entirely.

“Rhodey, why are the hydrophones on?”  
“Playing my tunes for the fish.”  
“What fish?”  
Rhodey laughed rubbing his head.  
“You saw the sharks? They loved it.”  
“They tried to eat the speakers.”  
“Just big old sea puppies, have to test everything with their mouth, it could be food.”  
Pepper rolled her eyes and turned back to the water readings.

That was why Rhodey wasn’t going swimming in the ocean, sea puppies. Well they weren’t the worst but considering how little humans knew of the ocean, swimming in it seemed fool hardy. That was just Rhodey though, he didn’t mind if someone else swam in it, and if it was Pepper he’d watch her like a hawk. Only going in if he needed to take her out. He was definitely a pool guy, the ocean was something else. He did not trust it one bit.

In fact Rhodey squinting at the horizon there was something out there. Actually there were many things out there but this thing he was looking at jumping out of the water, bright red.  
“Pep, come see this.”  
“I’m not done with this, yet. Just wait.”  
It was definitely Tones, swimming top speed it looked like.  
“I don’t think Tones will wait.”

Rhodey heard a clatter and the light foot falls of Pepper as she appeared beside him, hand over her brow as she looked at the rapidly approaching red shape.  
“How fast?”  
“Mmm, I’d say 25 knots at least. It's nice to see this, oh I think he’s going to splash us.”  
Peper laughed taking a few steps to the side.  
“He’s going to splash you. Remember?  
“I remember him calling for you with his dick out, I’ll take a splash over that any day.”

Pepper made a flustered sound, slapping Rhodey on the back side as she left to fetch some tools. Had to measure every bit of Tones, she was a bit disappointed that he’d not found a pod, or had any other Ethrals with him. She heard Rhodey complain about being splashed as the familiar cry of ‘OOOdEEEE’ was called out. Followed by Tones mimicking the turkey in the straws song.

“Hey Pep, he’s got new marks on his fins, Stars. And scars.”  
Pepper approached the area where Tones was resting his body against the boat flapping a pectoral in the water moisturizing Rhodey. He rolled and dipped out of site, head popping up with cries of ‘Peep’ nodding his head, while peeping.  
“Maybe if we could get him into the sling?”

They worked together to cajole Tones around the boat and into the sling. The Sling part didn’t take much, Pepper got onto it and Tones wiggled into the 3-4 feet of water just to press his melong into Pep’s tummy clicking and squealing with excitement. Rhodey fetched the equipment, letting Pepper have a moment with her favorite whale.

He was making his way back when he noticed a grey dorsal fin break the water near the front of the catamaran. Another Ethral? It was massive compared to Tones, but the star’s on the flippers, another blue one, it matched up with Tones so maybe a pod mate?  
“Hey, follow me this way. Tones is over here.”

Calling out and felling stupid for doing so, but when the grey whale followed him, he didn’t feel as stupid. It was large longer and thicker, though as Rhodey made his way around the fastenings, the thickness was more in the lower belly. He looked at the ultrasound machine, maybe it was pregnant?  
“You Devil Tones! You left your buddy to meet us?”  
Rhodey exclaimed as he lowered the equipment to Pepper as the grey Ethral prodded Tones’ fluke. Pepper’s eyes widen as she caught sight of the grey whale that without much prompting from them swam right up into the mesh, resting on one side with the damaged fin up. It was clicking at Tones, who was clicking and chirping back.

The grey one seemed to utter a great sigh and went lax.  
“Pep, pretty sure that one is pregnant.”  
Pepper approached the grey one slowly with the ultrasound transducer. She demoed it on herself and then Tone who peeped, excitedly. As he looked at the monitor and rubbed against the transducer. The big grey which Tones seemed to be making a lot of singular Uck noises at. Possibly the noise name, like Pepper was Peep, and Rhodey was Odey.

Rhodey watched as Pepper placed the transducer on the larger whale on his tummy with Tony watching the monitor with intent. He rubbed his chin, how anyone could say they weren’t intelligent beyond him. The grey held very still, Rhodey already considering a possible name, but wanting some input on it, When Pepper cried out in shock.

Rhodey was down there in the mesh water slapping at his thigh as he reached for Pepper in alarm. Tones was in the way and tripped him with his fluke, calling Odey, Odey as if greeting him again. Getting him wet on purpose, and below through the net Rhodey glimpsed another whale as big as the grey but blue. Pepper wasn’t screaming and Rhodey saw no blood but he did see was another tiny fluke poking out of the grey’s slit.

Pepper was washing the water over the Grey while whispering words of encouragement. Rhodey watched from his perch on Tones’ side who seemed to be clicking up a storm. He could feel the clicking from the contact. The deep echo as it reverberated down into the water, and the softer clicks probably from the other Whale down there. The grey flailed it’s tail, as the tiny fluke made a little headway out, it was probably uncomfortable.

There were strings of thick mucus leaking out and a soft sad noise, Pepper frowned as she knelt down over the fluke.  
“Pep? What are you thinking?”  
“I’m going to have to help, They came here for a reason.”  
Her hands slid around the tail and then one vanished into the slit, it was a tense few moments but as she pulled her hand away Rhodey noted with mirth, that the grey had an erection. Though also the calve was half out and the Grey seemed to me more into pushing with a renewed vigour.

Pepper’s go pro on her head was getting all of this footage. The calf’s color was a sandy brown though the fluke seemed to be much darker than the recently extruded part. Rhodey watches as the grey curls his tail up and the the babe rockets out in a dusky red cloud of after birth. Pepper reaches out with her hand but the calf is ejected from the net, but the big blue Ethral is there and props the swimming brown calf up to the surface for the first breath. It's peeping and chirping with life, eching the same Peep noise Tones’ is chanting.

All of them seem to be chanting Peep, the grey still has an erection and turns a bit to wiggle off the mesh. Tony seems pretty chill about the whole thing.  
“So our Tones here landed not one but two mates. And we just got to see and participate in a birth, how do you feel, Pep?”  
Pepper turned face full of tears as she washed her hands off in the ocean, sniffling. She embraced Tones’ melon and hugged him.  
“Al’right,”  
Rhodey pushed off of Tones and picked up some of the equipment to place in storage.

“We ought to name that one Buck on the way he bucked the kid out and the fact Tones calls him Ucky, and the other one looks like Steve from accounting. He doesn’t trust us, but he trusts Tones…”  
Pepper sniffled and then giggled at the Steve part.  
“He’s allowed to be wary, the management office bullies him; but this one does look like him.”  
The grey, Buck came back but only the top half of the body was on the mesh the calf decided that now was a good time to feed. Suckled insistently on one of the probably very sore teats. If the groaning and agitated noise the Buck was making. Steve was circling but seemed a bit slower, less of a glare and Tones, well Tones was sopping up Pep’s attention like a ham.

Tony sat and behaved pretty well while Pepper pulled some blood and did her measurements. When she’d gotten Tones to roll over so she could see his chest scar he presented to her his erect penis with flappy fins and excited peeps.  
“Looks like you have the magic touch Pep!”  
Rhodey called enjoying the pink flush on Pep’s face as she once again patted Tones’ tummy.

There was a high pitched squeak and then Rhodey was suddenly soggy, he whirled around to be face to face with the calf looking very pleased at splashing him. Rhodey mocked frowed and crossed his arms.  
“Oh you are a little troublemaker, aren't you?”  
The calf wiggled around in a tight 360 spin and then smacked the fluke in the water getting Rhodey even more wet. He could hear Pepper laughing at him, didn’t mind. He didn’t mind being splashed on by the baby either.

Tones wiggled off and he and Steve bumped melons and vanished into the deep. Buck stayed with them under the boat with the calf close by. Pepper opted to keep watch as Rhodey made them some lunch, which is probably what Tones and Steve were doing.  
-  
Tony and Steve made several hunting trips bringing Bucky back lots of food. One such trip Steve made a comment about the mesh sling on the land mites boat and how he thought that could be a way for them to conjoin. Tony thought it was a spendid idea, but then needed to get Bucky’s food first as Steve liked slow sex.

Back at the boat Morgan was peeping at Pepper as she measured the lively brown calf. The floppy dorsal fin seemed to be getting more rigid as time when on the curled fluke was starting to straighten out. Morgan would every morning rush into the mesh sling followed by Buck and Tones for a melon hug. The three seemed to adore getting hugs an scritches, Morgan like to show off her teeth, opening the mouth and peeping at Pepper.

The other whales didn’t open their mouth much and Pepper presumed it was something to do with communication the calf had not yet gotten the hang of it. Pepper had all the measurements of Buck, Tones, and Morgan. She did sigh as she watched Steve off the bow she’d like to get that one’s measurements as well but she already had so much new data that it would take a while for everyone back home to go through.

Rhodey was taking some photographs of the sucker scars on Tones and Buck he was sopping wet but seemed to be enjoying the way Morgan was playing with him. Splashing her back occasionally as he lifted Buck’s flipper for the shot of the scar and the star mark. Which they’d decided to be bond marks. Morgan wiggled and Rhodey slipped backwards into the ocean.

Pepper started but Rodey surfaced quickly and was pushed back on the mesh sling by Steve.  
“Thanks man,”  
Rhodey offered to the big blue whale as he crawled back to the side of the boat.  
“I’ve had enough ocean.”  
“Oh Rhodey.”  
Pepper sighed shaking her head. Morgan wiggled off the mesh followed by Buck after he finished the last bit of crab that Tones had caught for him.

In a surprising move the Steve the blue Ethral flopped onto the mesh pulling Tones closer to him by the weight alone. Steve offered one peep and held his fluke up.  
“Oh I think he’s telling you to measure him.”  
Pepper waded over with her clipboard, she wasn’t going to extract any samples from this one as he seemed very wary of them. He was easily a foot longer than Buck. As he rolled to his Side as Pepper continued measuring him she pulled back.

“You are all pervs of the sea.”  
Huffing almost playfully she winked at Tones.  
“I think he’s got something for you,”  
With that she left the mesh to set up a camera. Rhodey cackle with glee sure enough Steve was sporting a hard on. Tones wiggled closer with his own erection. Though he was still flapping his pectorals and chimeing for ‘Peep’.

“No Tones you must do this yourself.”  
Pepper chided as she turned the camera on pointing on them, making sure that the camera would also record Buck and Morgan who had left the mesh but not the area. Tones wiggled down his dick rubbing up against Steve’s. There was a lot of clicks issued from both of them and Tony’s blue melon spot actually started to glow. A similar spot on Steve glowed as well but it was less noticeable due to his darker coloration.

“Well that's clever,”  
Rhodey remarked as Steve slotted his dick into the anterior portion of Tones slit as Tones dick slotted into the vagina below Steve’s dick. Rhodey was writing down what he was witnessing as best he could, he wasn’t really a biologist so his side was more emotional in a way. It sounded like they were both chanting to each other. Steve ducking down and latching his mouth over Tony’s pectoral fin with the blue star.

Rhodey watching Tones’ body hyper extend, his eyes looking unfocused, it looked like Tones’ was feeling pretty damn good. When Steve released the fin the star was glowing a bit, definitely some sort of bond mark. The blue one was probably Steve’s as he lacked a blue star on his fins, just a red and gold.  
-  
Tony pressed against the bond mentally as he reassured Steve about coming up onto the mesh sling. Steve’s weight brought it down in the water making it easier for them to move around. Tony watched pleased that Steve was letting Peep touch him and do that thing with the ropes. He chatted with Steve while she worked.

“You were right those fingers do feel nice.”  
Steve admitted when Peep was lifting up his fluke for an underside image. He sighed into the bond as she traced the bond marks, Bucky was off in the ocean with Morgan, they’d found one of those corals that had anti bacterial properties on the hunt. Steve thought it best if Bucky could get morgan acclimated to rubbing herself on one.

After Steve had demonstrated to Tony how to do it. It had been a tad abrasive at first but Tony learned not to go so hard and the coral felt better after that. Happy to learn something new, happy to have Steve learning something new as he rolled onto his side as Peep ran her hand along the belly.

“I see why, this feels real nice.”  
Steve hummed into the bond and Tony flapped his pectorals as Steve became erect, he peeped for Peep. He too was hard and he was trying to convey that he was ready to conjoin and Peep could move now. He bobbed his head sloshing the water around as Peep pulled away after saying something about Steve. Shimmying his whole body closer to Steve’s side.

Bumping their dicks together as Tony being easier to move around got situated. Sliding into Steve with precision and grace that was probably entirely all Steve’s doing. Steve poked his own penis into Tony and flexed his tail afterwards pressing tightly up against Tony. his pectorals coming around and above Tony’s in an embrace.

Tony cried out to Steve singing his praise and wonder, for while Bucky had been thick, Steve was long, and he filled Tony up nicely. Steve ducked his head and latched on to Tony’s flipper that held his blue star and sucked on it some. Reaffirming the bond, as they twined together sharing their minds, Steve was different from Bucky, The mind opened up for Tony and he was held tightly to Steve. It felt amazing Steve was holding him, singing a song just for him as they held onto each other on the mesh.

The gentle sway of Steve’s thrusts combined with Tony’s as they rubbed against each other. Tony was very warm and satiated to be with Steve his own manic thoughts slowed down. He could feel bucky through the bond, he was echoing amusement. Though it became flustered and Steve’s bond fluctuate oddly as he shifted while holding onto Tony.

“Stebe, Stebe I want a sister,”  
Morgan peeped while nudging Steve in the back some splashing around on the mesh. Probably a bit upset that her ‘Stebe’ was not paying her any attention. Tony could feel Steve sigh through the bond, Morgan was removed by Bucky. There was mild exacerbation from both Steve and Bucky, Tony felt like he was missing something.

Though he was eager to return to Steve and this time did what Steve did, opening his bond to hold Steve as he nuzzled into his blue chest. Steve started singing again as he resumed rolling his hips, Tony followed suit. It felt really good the way Steve filled him up and the way Steve was clamped all over his dick. Steve was actively pulling Tony in even with the rocking thrusts.

Tony was floating, and Steve wasn’t letting him come down. He was barely aware of other things around him just ‘Steve’. Though he did hear Odey off somewhere asking bucky something, it couldn’t have been real since the landmites really didn’t communicate well with them, but he got the feeling in this one instance they had flawless communication.

Eventually Tony’s side he was laying on got uncomfortably itchy and no amount of Soothing from Steve could assusage the itch.  
“Steve, can I uh uncouple?”  
“No you gave me your dick.”  
“But, I’m soo itchy.”  
As if to accentuate how itchy Tony wiggled out of sync with Steve. Steve made a huffy noise with his blowhole and paped Tony on the melon with his fins, in a gentle manner.

“Please give me my penis back Steve, we’ve argasomed so much I can barely feel it.”  
Tony knew he was being dramatic and it had been very good sex, mind blowing really but it was too much now. Everything was hypersensitive, his skin itched on the inside, his dick was sore, mouth dry, tummy hungry, Tony was agitated to say the least.

At last Stever released his vice like grip on Tony, Tony rolled onto the other side dipping it into cooler water going limp with the relief of soothing his skin upside from the relentless sun. Tony did help Steve off the mesh, and then joined up with Bucky and Morgan for some play and feeding. Tony exaggerating his swimming and stretching out his kinks, feeling better that he wasn’t in the sun anymore he playfully bumped Morgan and started a bit of a bump war while they swam towards and area they knew had clams.

Letting Bucky fall into flank with Steve as they chattered about food, and how Morgan did not trust that coral, Bucky had spent some of the time while they’d been coupled trying to get her to rub against it but she was very suspicious of it. Bucky was pitching that maybe if she saw her favorite ‘stebe’ swim through it she’d be more inclined to try.  
-  
It took the Ethral whales three hours to procreate, however Rhodey suspect this wasn’t an average based on Buck’s answer to his short question. He’d been being silly when he asked Buck if the coupling for three hours was normal, and buck had shook his head, snorted a plume of water and rolled onto his side waving his fin. Rhodey understood this as ‘No this length coupling wasn’t normal, and possibly Steve’s idea of doing it slow’.

The coupling ended with Tony’s indecent wiggling and clicking. Maybe Steve just liked to do things slower, or was greedy? Maybe they just didn’t know enough to draw any conclusions from it. Well besides that both whales had multiple orgasims, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

The calf had tried to join that at one point, right before Buck managed to tug it away with a mouth of fluke. The little brown girl had flopped onto the mat besides Steve clicking and whistling while nudging Steve's back with her snout. Buck was kept her occupied with milk.

Steve was back in the ocean, having dived down as soon as he slid off the mesh. Tones was floating next to Buck with Morgan between them, she was very still but her little brown head was very close to the water. Probably sleeping, Pepper was recording everything of course. She was very excited having seen a live birth and a coupling. What more could a girl ask for?

Rhodey snorted, listening to the aquaphone to the slow clicks coming from them, he could pinpoint when Steve came back as the clicks became sharper and more frequent. Watching as Steve offered a single squid to both Tones and Buck. nothing that Tones seemed inclined to let Buck have all of it, while not break their close association. Steve took up a position under the calf as if to fully protect it from the ocean.

They managed to stay for about a week in that area recording as much as they could about the Ethral family dynamic, though their supplies where dwindling and they were supposed to travel to some of the islands for more. Before they left though pepper managed to pull some blood from Steve at last. She confirmed he was indeed pregnant and of course gave them all melon hugs including Steve who seemed less wary in the end.

They even managed to tag the whole lot, excluding Morgan who was much too wiggly to safely tag. It was a better tagging system sent to them from a fellow researcher, one of Dr. Banners colleagues. Mr. Pym was more into technology but apparently his late wife adored cetaceans, and he was dedicating a bit more time in making safe trackers that would last longer. So they were state of the art, unlike most of their hand me down equipment.

So fancy they were that Rhodey had to reread the instruction manuel a few time before he felt confident in attaching them. Tones was the first pancake and he didn’t seem to mind it but also splashed Rhodey and acted like he’d been inconvenced. Buck didn’t even flinch when the tag was placed and Rhodey suspected the big grey didn’t even feel the pinch based on how thick his skin seemed to be.

He could feel the muscles ripple under Tones’ back when he pett the other. Buck was smooth and rubbery but he really couldn’t palpate any muscles through the blubber. Even when he pushed hard enough to warrant a reaction from Buck which was usually a stink eye followed with splashing. Steve was pretty much the same thing, his body did twitch after the tag was placed but rhodey did his best to feel for the muscles but couldn’t.

He’d brought his findings to Pepper who carefully wrote it down, Morgan had some fat but was mostly muscle though she was pretty much a baby. Pepper surmised that it might have to do with the secondary characteristics, or that Tony was easily the youngest of the adults and just hasn’t had the time to put on a thicker blubber coat. Rhodey’s favorite was the hypothesis that Tones was too excitable and loses his fat to just being so wiggly, like Morgan. They had practically the same wiggle display in the morning for the melon hugs.

Rhodye had teased Pepper that it was her magic hand that had them all wild for, She flushed that lovely red in her cheeks and nose. Rhodey let them all splash him without much complaint as they let the sails out and picked up speed in the direction of the caribbean. And for a short while the Ethrals rode in front of the bow with little Morgan in front. They escorted Pepper and rhodey a few miles before swimming off to cooler waters.

Showing off with jumps and squeals as they slowly vanished into the horizon. Pepper rested her head on Rhodey’s shoulder.  
“We’ll need to do this again, I want to see Steve’s calf and see what colors Morgan takes on,”  
“Well once we get all this data back I don’t see them rejecting another chance for this sort of footage. It's a date Pep. just write me in as your assistant and not hopelessly in love fool.”  
Pepper snickered and kissed Rhodey on the temple, as she leaned into him. As she murmured  
“Sure thing sugar bear.”


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is preggy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it I'm done, I hope you enjoyed this whale nonsense!

Rhodey was in the business office because Pepper had wanted him to pick up some paperwork and drop off some of their charts. So Marissa, the public relations lady could use it in the press release. Ten Rings had been very close to shutting down apparently and this successful case could possibly turn over the parks’ luck. Rhodey thought it was a fat chance unless something was done about the state of the exhibits and animal care the chances are this would be a one off and the public wasn’t stupid they remember the random ‘spontanious deaths’.

He didn’t even understand why the animals were treated so poorly, you would think with them being the main attraction. That the park would put their welfare priority number one. Happy well cared animals drew bigger crowds and died less, that the animals the rehabbed and decided to keep? What Ten Rings need was a third party governing body that decided if the animals were fit for release.

All these ideas where Pepper’s of course but her passionate speeches about these issues had become Rhodey’s own. Here he was listening to the PR lady trying to spin this as Ten Rings turning over a new leaf. He nodded politely and carefully retreated before he could stuff his foot in his mouth.

He was on his way out of the labyrinth of cubicles, when in front of him appeared Steve from accounting. His brows furrowed and his lips turned down, in a pout. He really had a resemblance to the blue Ethral whale that had his name. Except that a strong breeze could blow him away. He brighten up when he saw Rhodey though, heck if rhodey knew why.

“Rhodey could you come with me to my office?”   
Rhodey shrugged might as well, he only had to get back to his post in the blistering heat. A detour in the air conditioner was a fine compromise. Steve’s office really looked like someone had cleaned out a utilities closet, one with a small narrow window that let in some sun.

The whole place was covered in images of Ethral whales though. There was a reddish glass piece of what Rhodey assumed to be Tones, it was crudely made. Probably something from the gift shop, Rhodey settled down in the chair when Steve gestured to it. Steve looked a bit happier the frown was gone and his brows were relaxed.   
  
“I uh, well I know we don’t really get a long. I don’t remember why but I’d like to apologize if I did anything?”   
“Nah man, we just in different circles.”   
Rhodey waved his hand and drew a circle in the air. Steve leaned back and gestured to the red glass art.   
  
“I made that, On Sundays I do glass blowing I’m not very good. It looks more like a shark.”   
Man Rhodey felt bad hearing Steve toss himself under the bus. It did look more like a shark now that Steve had mentioned it.   
“It's cool, I’m pretty sure I would have made a lump. Tones would have liked it, he’s a sucker for red things.”   
There was a flash of joy that vanished quickly from Steve’s face as he pulled out some papers.   
  
“Pepper asked me to edit her papers, and I’m done. I uh would really like it if next time I could tag along? I have my own boat. I’d like to get some pictures so I can show them to my mom. She loves the Ethrals.”   
Rhodey was a bit confused accepting the papers, he’d known pepper had asked someone in the business office to look them over. Hadn’t known it was Steve. He glanced down at the papers and noticed the nameplate ‘Steve Rogers’.   
  
“Hey any relations to Mrs. Rogers, the manta momma?”   
Steve held that look of joy again and this time it stayed.   
“Yes thats my mom, she’ll be back this saturday.”   
“Cool, is that all Steve?”   
Rhodey gathered up the papers carefully shuffling them. Waiting for Steve to let him go so he could drop the papers off and go back to his dull work.   
  
“Actually yeah, um. I want to say it's an honor to have an Ethral named after me. Pepper told me it was your idea.”   
Shit Steve was getting all misty eyed, teeth on his lower lip as he struggled to say something. Rhodey was watching the smaller man just fall apart.

“I’d really like to see my name sake, no one has ever thought of me like this.”   
“I’m not in charge Steve, you have to ask Pepper.”   
That earned a smile as the other hiccuped over his tears.   
“Pretty sure Pepper would insist you mom come too.”   
“Yes she’d stow herself away if I didn’t let her come.”   
Steve looked fondly at a picture on his desk probably and image of his mother.   
  
“And I named him that way because you two have the same determined face. You’ll see it in the videos. Possibly the same eyes too. I was too busy being splashed by the calf. I hope she gives Tones loads of mischief.”   
Steve had composed himself enough cleaning up with a hanky. He got up from his chair, and opened his door.   
  
“Thank you Jim, and if you ever need to escape the heat my door is open.”   
“Heck man your fine with me randomly popping in? Also please Rhodey.”   
“Certainly, Rhodey!”   
They shook hands and Rhodey left to find Pepper. He wondered if she had planned this out, he wouldn’t put it past her.

-

Pepper had already applied for the time for the next trip out, measured in time for seeing another birth. She had been very busy with the papers that were in the works of being published along with editing the videos making sure to cut out all of the penis presentations. Reprobates, Tones must have influenced the others. She smiled fondly as she removed a bit more of that stuff.   
  
There had been several offers from other institutes, for Pepper they wished to employ her. Some of them offered a salary which was very tempting, benefits and better pay. One place even offered a job for Rhodey and they were on the coast, she would have to go over it with honey bear.

She smiled, steve from accounting had practically demanded to be able to see the whale named after him, Mrs manta momma had written a letter to Pepper. It mirrored a similar request. Of course they would need extra hands and Mrs. Rogers was pretty legendary in the field of cetacean obstetrics. Pepper had picked her brains over the phone about what she’d felt inside Buck when little Morgan had been stuck.

They both agreed it was probably one of her pectoral fins, that had abducted and was causing Buck some unpleasant pains when he pushed. Thus his recalcitrant nature in pushing because it hurt. Sarah she insisted to be called, had mentioned that was common and usually the calf wiggles a bit and the fin is corrected. So Pepper helped make the birth much quicker which Buck seemed to appreciate.   
  
This devolved into Sarah talking about her five hour birthing with Steve.   
“Oh he just didn’t want to leave, had to get a C-section.”   
Pepper was acutely interested in this.   
“How was the pain?”   
“Oh honey, ask for an epidural, don’t even bother, first thing ask for it. We have enough pain why taint that with it?”   
“Okay?”   
“Having kidney stones was a worse pain, but for the most part it was just extreme discomfort but the epi made it all better!”   
  
-

The next time Rhody popped in to visit Steve was to let him know the good news. There was a huge image of the Ethral Steve on his wall behind his desk, more glass figures that looked very similar to Tones and Buck on the desk. The red sharky blob was gone. Though the most out of the place was the paper box filled with other knick knacks. Sorta looked like Steve was packing up.   
  
“Hey Rhodey! My glass stuff looks better, here I made this one for you.”   
Steve offered one that looked like Morgan, and had a smout coming out of her blowhole. Rhodey picked it up admiring it as Steve started packing up his desk.   
“Are you leaving?”   
“Yep”   
  
Steve seemed really happy about that.   
“I got a job offer by a university. I’ve already handed in my resignation letter a while back. Mom’s pretty excited to move to a more progressive area.”   
He looked happy, compared to the few times Rhodey had seen him around with the frowny face.   
  
“Ah, I was coming to Tell you Pepper and I were also leaving, she got a really good offer and they’re letting us keep the vacation we’ve booked.”   
Steve nodded looking very happy and Rhodey squinted it seemed like Steve knew something he didn’t. He continued the staring match till Steve colored up and averted his gaze.   
“Ah my mom wrote a letter of recommendation for Pepper. They make a really good team.”   
Steve offered a shrug with a small smile.   
  
“I’ll keep in contact, I can’t wait to see them.”   
Steve carefully wrapped tones glass sculpture in paper, followed by Buck.   
“Well let me help,”   
Steve gave Rhodey another shy smile.   
“I’d like that.”

-

When the time came Pepper, Sarah, Rhodey, and Steve met up at the docks. It was time to go over their supplies and complete the checklist. There were a few special things that were needed to go over for Steve’s smaller sailboat. It was then when Pepper had dropped the best news. She was expecting, she had waited to Tell Rhodey mostly because she’d been so busy. Though she also wanted to make sure it was a real thing, so she was about a month along by the time Rhodey knew about it. 

Rhodey was elated and took Pepper out, Sarah and Steve finished the checklist for them. They had more nicer new tech and several grants fueling this foray. Only one tag was still giving off updates and they seemed to be up in the labrador sea. It was noted by locals that there seemed to be a lot more Ethrals in the area.

Steve had gotten inexplicably excited when he learned that there were several reports of the Ethral named after him. Coming back that he was super fat, so fat that a lot of people were worried about the fat whale. Actually everyone barring Rhodey who knew the baby was just going to splash him; seemed pretty excited about possibly being their in time to see Steve give birth.   
  
The reports even indicated that Morgan was still in the little pod which had Rhodey packing extra wetsuits on the premise that he was going to be very soggy for most of the trip. He was glad though everyone seemed really happy, Rhodey was over the moon with the expected kid, Pepper was happy to see her Tones.

  
  
Morgan was a spritely child inquisitive and suspicious, she didn’t believe that it was time to be weaned and would periodically check on Bucky’s teats. Looking for milk, she’d decided that fish were gross. Bucky rather disliked being nipped for milk long after he’d stopped producing it. Tony spent a lot of time hunting for his Omegas.

He also tried to find things that Morgan hadn’t had yet so she couldn’t decide she didn’t like them. No one disabused her of the notion that she could dislike something without trying it. Surprisingly she took to urchins, and the area where they currently where had tons of them. Tony took to teaching her how to flip them, smashing them would come later. Right now she was so happy to help, trying to flip over all the urchins.   
  
Thankfully Bucky could smash his own urchins to eat so he’d just float over to an area morgan had been with one of the nice flatting rocks and smashed. Steve didn’t mind the urchins, he was huge, bigger than Bucky. Tony worried about that, Steve really didn’t say much but he could tell by the way Steve held himself he wasn’t feeling well.

Bucky had mentioned that he wouldn’t mind calving again but he’d like to wait till Morgan was ready to leave them. Tony understood this Morgan was a fin full. Just the other day Bucky had caught her trying to suckle from Steve’s teats. That resulted in a grand chase that Morgan seemed to enjoy. Hopping out of the water and splashing, she seemed to inherent Tony’s lack of coordination out of the water.

Morgan had been a bit adamant that she wanted to stay with them till she went through her second puberty. She really wanted to help Steve with the babies, though she also wanted a sister. Sometimes Tony could see glimpses of Morgan’s maturity, luckily it was far and few between. 

Though she would demand that Tony would swim and jump with her.So they could breach the water and be clumsy together. He coat turned a very rich brown and as she started to mature a bit the gold fleck became more visible. Tony had a hard time saying no to her, he often had to reach out to Bucky in the bond for support.

She would initiate play with tony by swimming up to his side real close and then bump into him. Then they’d swim and usually tony let Morgan be a head in front of him as he would nuzzle her while she shrieked that he was cheating. The race would never be linear as Morgan would spiral down or up trying to get away from the kisses. Sometimes when she was laughing to much Tony would tuck his head under hers when they breached so she could get a better breath. He adored Morgan.  
  
They all sported tags too well excluding Margan, who was suspicious of the bits of tech attached to her pod’s dorsal fins. Though now she thought they were nifty accessories and wanted one next time. Now that her fid was erect though she did say the floppy fin made her more adorable. 

Tony sighed he’d had a tag before and it fell off around the time he was looking for Hulk. He suspects that how Banner had found him, which would be nice if the tag would last longer so Odey and Peep could find them again. Maybe when Steve would give birth so he had the net to rest in. He really seemed to like the net even if he didn’t spend a lot of time in it. 

Steve gods, Steve was still very cuddly at night and Tony trying his best to make Steve feel a bit better would spend hours hunting down clams. Tony was a heck of a lot more attentive towards Steve, Bucky didn’t complain though since Tony would occupy Morgan on the clam hunts. She even brought a clam back in her mouth once for her favorite Steve.

Eventually Steve started to feel better perking up, he did complain that none of the omegas had ever mentioned the grouchy time or feeling heavily bloated at all during pregnancy. They’d all crooned about how good it felt. Steve was very much disenchanted with pregnancy at this point. When they’d rest and slow down Steve’s body would try and rotate belly up much to the dismay of Steve.

Tony tried to use his sound to echolocate Steve’s baby like Peep had with that wand on Bucky. Steve didn’t seem to mind at first but when Tony was getting some odd feed back and pressed his melon a bit harder than necessary Steve jerked.   
“Tony!”   
“Sorry Steve, I was getting not sure two images?”  
  
The bond exploded and Bucky snickered. Tony tried to wrap his bond around Steve as his bond was flying with multi colors. Steve was flipping through so many emotions, Bucky’s mirth wasn’t helpful and Tony ignored it. Slowly he managed to calm down Steve through the bond, he could get them more food, It would be fine. Steve had both of them, and Morgan.   
“Steve’s line has had twins in it, he could be packing two babies.”   
The sediment better you than me came across the bond, Steve wilted.   
“No wonder I’m so fat.”   
“Oh Steve…”   
Tony peeled away and swam off had to get Steve a clam, get his mind off being an adorably fat blue blimp, the bond reassuring him that Steve was still happy but also unsure. Tony had learned that Steve had little confidence in his own body, Which was strange given that Steve looked to be the archetype Ethral.

Bucky had explained it had to do when Steve was a calf, and being bullied a bit by the others. Even after his growth spurt Steve’s mental image of himself was as that scrawny calf. Which Tony understood because his own self version was sometimes still the lost Tony prior to losing Ty. He still felt like that occasionally, but thankfully not as often. He managed to suss this out as he looked for a big enough clam to tide Steve over till Bucky and him could hunt for real.

When he returned with the biggest clam he could find he found Morgan singing to Steve’s belly. Bucky was pressed against Steve’s side and was singing a different slower song. Morgan’s song was literally ‘you’ll be my sibling a sister I hope a brother is good too, I can’t wait to play!’ She was dancing to her own song as she sang. It was cute.

Tony presented the clam half and Steve sucked it up, the bond turned a light red and Steve sighed.   
“Thank you Tony, I think we should head back to the inky sea. I think Morgan will like squid, and I could do with some.”   
“Yeah I love squid.”   
“Yeah you eat so much you pop a stiffy.”   
Bucky chuckled as he increased his speed to lead. Tony rolled his eyes, Bucky popped a stiffy if the current changed. Steve was smiling softly as he followed Bucky, with Tony at his side.

The squid turned out to be Morgan's favorite food thankfully. She was starting to really put on some weight and hit her first growth spurt in the inky sea. She tried learning to hunt the squid from Bucky at first but then complained that it was too hard. Tony was happy to point out that she really needed to close her eyes while she echolocation and maybe swimming with her mouth open could help. 

It did and she was able to get a few, it was positive feedback, Morgan was more inclined to hunt for herself if she actually got food. Tony peeped excitedly at her as she caught another squid. She even brought one of her catches back to Steve because she was helping. Steve declined it under the premise that if morgan could hunt for herself they’d all have more time to bond.   
  
Yeah this family was good, Tony was really happy. His mates were happy and Morgan was pretty much always happy. He’d finally found his family.


End file.
